The Truth About Us

The Truth About Us: Janet Gurtler
Publication Date: April 7th 

The truth is that Jess knows she screwed up.
She's made mistakes, betrayed her best friend, and now she's paying for it. Her dad is making her spend the whole summer volunteering at the local soup kitchen.

The truth is she wishes she was the care-free party-girl everyone thinks she is.
She pretends it's all fine. That her "perfect" family is fine. But it's not. And no one notices the lie...until she meets Flynn. He's the only one who really sees her. The only one who listens.

The truth is that Jess is falling apart – and no one seems to care. 
But Flynn is the definition of "the wrong side of the tracks." When Jess's parents look at him they only see the differences-not how much they need each other. They don't get that the person who shouldn't fit in your world... might just be the one to make you feel like you belong.

So, what really made me interested in reading this book was the whole wrong side of the tracks thing like West Side Story lol. Ok so not exactly like West Side Story…. but their families didn't want them to be together so close enough. When I first started reading this I'm not gonna lie I was disappointed. I felt like I could map out how this story was going to go, and none of the characters seemed to have a connection with each other. Not just the two main characters, but like anybody. 

"'Is he a criminal? Married?' She takes her coffee and sips it. She drinks hers black.

'Worse'. I tell her. 'He's poor.'"

Even though I thought the characters didn't connect with each other in the beginning, I always really liked them. They were really intricate and had very different personalities. I really liked Flynn! When I was reading other reviews, I saw that a lot of people didn't really like him at some points. I liked him at all points, though! I can see why he did the things he did, plus I like characters that mess up. I never really like perfect characters because they're boring. 

"'My son is quite taken with you' she says softly. 

'He's a good kid', I say watching in run away. I like him too 

She blinks slowly. 'That isn't the son I was speaking of.' she says" 

Then, a little over halfway, the book just heated up so much in a thousand different ways. There were things I didn't see coming and people's personalities started revealing themselves. I'm not one to get teary over books but there were parts that I was like damn… It seemed that SO much was put into such a little portion that it was so exciting. One crazy thing was happening after another, it was like the grand finale of fireworks. 

Overall, even though the beginning was disappointing, the second half made up for a lot of it by telling me that I obviously didn't know what was going to happen! Some stories ran in parallel with each other, which made it pretty beautiful when it came together. I would recommend this book to those who like contemporary romance novels. 

**Thank you to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review!**