Book Review: The Truth About Us – Dalene Flannigan
[image error] What happens when the past catches up to the present and the truth surfaces? Three women, roommates back in college, find their lives forever altered when one of them feels compelled to confess the secret sin of their past.
And whose truth is it?
‘The Truth About Us’ weaves the past and the present in a page-turner that explores the shifting quality of truth, and the cost of secrets.
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Review: The Truth About Us (2011)
I had The Truth About Us on my ereader for quite a while and started reading it before checking over the synopsis again so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I found a story of three friends, both bound together and torn apart by a deep secret, which – as secrets inevitably seem to – threatened to come out and shatter all of their carefully built up lives. Grace is a successful film-maker, Erica is married (though not very happily) with children and both are floored when Jude announces with some zeal that she has found religion and intends to confess their act.
As the novel continues the story unfolds and the ‘act’ is revealed, as well as the reasons behind it. It’s hard not to sympathise with the position that Grace, Erica and Jude were in and I found it almost impossible not to despite Jude for what I considered to be her selfish weakness. Though she declared her reasons were selfless and based on her newly found love of Jesus, I felt this was rather an example of someone caught up in their own vision of religion. This is not to condemn religion but rather its abuse, which I think Flannigan touches on during the novel.
The Truth About Us is a novel of questions: what did they do, what will they do, what will be the consequences. The expectation that built during the novel seemed – for me – to outdo the final scenes in terms of drama and tension but overall this was a very good read with a great message: when you seek forgiveness, is it for someone else’s sake or in fact just to ease your own conscience.
Verdict: 4/5
(Book source: reviewer received a copy in exchange for a fair and honest review)
Book Review: The Truth About Us – Dalene Flannigan | Thank you for reading Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dave
