Me on 16 Things I Thought Were True

Title: 16 Things I Thought Were True
Author: Janet Gurtler
Release Date: March 4, 2014
Publisher: Sourcebooks

When Morgan's mom gets sick, it's hard not to panic. Without her mother, she would have no one, until she finds out the dad who walked out on her as a baby isn't as far away as she thought. Now that they have a summer job together, Morgan's getting to know the real Adam and he's actually pretty sweet, in a nerdy-hot kind of way. He even offers to go with her to find her dad. With Adam in the back seat, a hyper chatterbox named Amy behind the wheel, and plenty of Cheetos to fuel their trip, Morgan feels ready for anything. She's not expecting a flat tire, a missed ferry, a fake girlfriend, and that these two people she barely knew before the summer started will become the people she can't imagine living without.

16 Things I Thought Were True is an honest look at those truths in life that we never see coming, those hard times and sudden surprises that change how we see the world. This is a wake-up call in more ways than one for Morgan, a smack in the face for a girl who has so many assumptions about the world only to have them all shatter at her feet. What Morgan realizes is that the world is far more painful than she realized, but it can also be far more exciting.

Morgan is bitter about some things, self-centered in certain ways. She has flaws, and in a way she knows she's not perfect, but her way of dealing with that seems to be avoidance. And she might as well have her phone permanently glued to her hand with how often she's checking her Twitter follower count. She supplements real life with Twitter, avoiding the skeletons in her closet, but she can't avoid any longer when her mother drops the biggest bombshell ever about her absent father.

In life, there are different kinds of friends. Real life in person friends, online friends, popularity-seeking friends, honest friends, Facebook friends, ex-friends. We all have different kinds, and most have a hand in shaping us as people, but which will be the ones that matter? Which kind of friend will mean the most to Morgan in the end? Which will she grab hold of and never let go? Which will teach her all about what she's been missing?

Reality comes crashing down on Morgan more than once in this book, and it sucks. It's never easy or gentle when it happens, and it's often accompanied by screaming or crying or raging against anything or everything that moves. There are things in life we think are true, things we think we know about people, and when we learn they aren't is when we learn the most.

(I received an advance copy of this title from Raincoast Books.)