Oh wow. This was a whole thing. What a ride. I felt like I was reading about 3 different books at once. I had no idea how it was all going to tie together but man let me tell you it did.

This was stunningly written. I can’t wait to see what the author follows this up with!

True Story is so involving so unique a book that needs to be read just open the book & start.There are so many twists turns moves from one shocking reveal to the next.Expect this to be a best seller will be recommending,#netgalley#quercusbooks

This book wasn’t for me I’m afraid, I just didn’t like the way it was written, so it was a DNF.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

This reminded me of a few fiction and non fiction books I've read before - Louise O'Neill does it well in her book, Asking For It - but this surprised me by making me feel like it was a new story. I can't say I enjoyed reading this book, but I definitely got somethign from it and that's the important part.

Fantastic 5 star read. Loves the genre bending and the development of the character’s lives after the lie of the sexual assault. Reed Petty handled the subject matter amazingly. Can’t recommend enough.

True Story ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

This was an intense rollercoaster of a read! Thanks to @Netgalley & @quercusbooks for the opportunity to read and review this one which I devoured in two sittings.

What a book. This one blew my mind.

This book has four different covers which now that I've read I can completely understand why. Genius.

A tale of obsession, abuse, control and addiction. This book explores so many complex themes. This book looks at how one action can have consequences on your whole life & others.

Nick is the star of his high school lacrosse team, attempting to be one of the guys. The team attempt to make each party better than the last, more alcohol, more fun & more girls. But a party broken up by the police causes the team to run in different directions only to regroup later at the local diner with a story that will shake a few lives.

This book is a force. One that I will long remember. I've never read a book like this that's for sure.

I have to say I have some mixed feelings on this book. Given four different covers as it doesn’t really pigeonhole into one genre alone. A story of abuse, addiction, control, power, murder.

The two main protagonists are Alice, a young girl who gets drunk at a party, she gets a lift home by two of the Lacrosse team players, but she has no idea what happened that night, was she abused or not? Then Nick, who was at the same party, but mainly on the sidelines, drunk, he had only one thing on his mind that night and that was getting off with Haley. But that night haunts him as much as it haunted Alice, because he stuck up for Richard and Max, should he have done?

The characters aren’t yet adults when all this starts but they are no longer children either, they are at pivotal points in their lives just about to start out. But that night changed everything. We gradually see how their lives move on over the years. Alice never knowing what actually happened, so lives with the feeling/belief that she was raped. Nick has his own demons, and drinks to block them out.

This is a cleverly written book, but I found some of the parts to be repetitive, especially the constant showing of Alice’s University statement, I know it was being altered each time it was shown, but felt it was too much, the random placing of scripts which i just didn’t see how they fit that well with the story. The way they flitted back and forth.

For me personally having been in abusive relationships there are some trigger points. It may appeal more to a younger audience than me. I have no doubt it will definitely appeal to many.

I would like to thank #netgalley and # Quercus #Riverrun for an eARC in exchange for an honest, fair and unbiased review.

This book blew my mind. It was fantastic. It was every genre rolled into one. I was on the edge of my seat. Once I begun I did not want to put it down. Don’t remember ever reading such a genre blend as this before. But it worked!! Very well written.

I was intrigued by the cover of this book and a promise of a story I have never read before.

In this book you will meet Alice and Nick whose lives are intertwined by their past. The real story in this book is how other peoples actions can impact on you throughout your whole life. Including how a lapse in our memory can change everything.

The storyline touched on some very serious and confronting issues. While I enjoyed the twist in the storyline and the characters were relatable, it wasn't a groundbreaking never-been-written before book. The various writing style frustrated me and the purpose of the book, i'm still not sure of. While I appreciated the pre-release read from Quercus Books, I think I would have preferred to spend my nights reading something else.

#TrueStoryBook #NetGalley

Reading this book can only be compared to that feeling when a rollercoaster. At first, it keeps you hooked in anticipation and then the drop happens, leaving you wanting more.

Now I can quite safely say that I have never read a book like True Story before and that is a good thing.
I didn't know what to expect next, either in terms of the way the next chapter would be written (with screenplays, traditional prose, unsent emails and draft college application letters all rolled into one book) or what would happen to the characters next.
I know they say never judge a book by its cover but I wish I had paid a bit more attention to the cover before I started this, as it does clearly show you some of the places this one book will take you.
Some of the iterations of the story dragged on a little bit for me, which is why I couldn't quite give it 5 stars but I would definitely recommend that people pick this book up, solely because of how many genres you get packed into one book. Even if certain parts don't quite appeal to you as much as the others, there is certainly a story or stories in this for everyone.
True Story is smart, unique and well written and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more from Kate Reed Petty in the future.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars. Thank you to the publisher for an advanced copy of this book. I've had my eye on this one for a while as it is eagerly anticipated and full of buzz already. It comes with 4 different covers representing thriller, horror and noir. I particularly like the blue cover and the pink one.

In this debut novel we meet Nick, star of his high school lacrosse team, trying to be one of the guys but not always fitting in. He hangs out and drinks at house parties, where the popular jocks try and make each party more epic than the last. Then one night at a party, the cops come and break it up. Everyone escapes in different directions and meet up a couple of hours later at the local diner. Here, Nick's friends tell a story about how they drove a drunk girl home but not before getting frisky with her in the back seat. But are they telling the truth? Is this just boys exaggerating, trying to look cool. Or did it really happen? And if it did, she was drunk, there was no consent, this was rape.

Chinese whispers permeate the school and the story takes on a life of its own. But what happens to the victim, especially when she can't even remember what happened? We then follow Alice through her life trying to come to terms with her experiences. See how it influences her life and the impact it has on her.

This book left me with an unusual feeling. I had to digest it for a while. I didn't love it, but I did like it and it was well written. I liked the use of emails/film scripts to tell the story and move it forward. I didn't particularly like any of the characters, but did want to know the "true story" and I'm glad we do find out in the end what happened.

I stormed through this book in less than 24 hours. It had me gripped. Even after reading the synopsis, I wasn't entirely sure what I was getting into which I liked. But as the story progressed I was enthralled.
I'm a big fan of books about injustice, if that doesn't sound too niche and this hit all the right spots for me. The characters felt really believable and I loved that it didn't conform to just one genre. I really think there should be more books like this.
The only reason I'm giving this 4 stars rather than 5 is because I struggled a little bit with the different narratives and sometimes had to press back a few pages to make sure I knew whose narrative it was.
But overall, a really great read.

This book feels like a number of books combined in one, and I enjoyed the way that the author used different genres to explore the story, whilst keeping the characters and overall plot the same. It is an interesting, unique, read, and once yuou get into it it becomes hard to put down!

First of all thank you for the e-ARC in exchange for a review. I did like the writing style in the book but I found it too difficult to read (I'm not talking about the language but the topic) i struggled to finish it. Though many may like it, i found it very grim and graphic for me. It should come with a trigger warning for people like me. I'm sure the book is good but it just didn't work out for me. I wish I could have written a better review but I'm so sorry I can't.

A devastating exploration of the way that lives can be ripped apart due to the things that other people say - and don't. When two high-school sports stars start boasting of taking advantage of a drunk girl on the way home from a party, the story takes on a life of its own. The girl has no memory of the event but is destroyed by what she has learned; the boys attempt to hide behind the security and bravado of their sports teams. The book is made up of multiple threads coming from different characters, some of them part of what happened, others just observers on the periphery of things: but because all of them are involved in the evolution of the story that is told, they all end up playing a major role. The multiple drafts of the girl's college application essay are heartbreaking, and tell the entire story in just a few pages through what is not said. The book plays around with genre and truth and will stay with you long after you finish reading.

This is well written and very of it’s time given the current #MeToo movement. It’s a bit weird in some of the content-I’m not sure how to better explain it, it’s just strange and surreal at times. It jumps around from the time that the incident occurs and then into the future when all involved are adults, and it’s told from different characters perspectives which I like. It definitely gripped me. Thanks to Netgalley for the arc copy.

True Story is one of those books that I feel like I can't get away from at the moment. Everybody's talking about it and when several of my friends and colleagues got physical advance copies, I was intrigued by the four covers and why the publisher felt each was relevant to the story.

This is a book that is definitely worth the hype. I devoured it in two days and I will say, it's not the story I expected, but it's absolutely gripping. The decision to flit between multiple POVs, formats, and timelines might sound confusing, but Petty blends it all together so beautifully that you're rushed along with the story, dying to turn the page and figure out how it all fits together.

At times, it's disturbing, and the constantly switching POV had me questioning whether what I was being told was true. Which in itself, is the heart of this twisting story. I would highly recommend you read this one, and in my opinion, the Stephen King inspired cover is spot on.

Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is without a shadow of a doubt a very cleverly written book, but the chopping and changing styles was something I struggled with a little bit. This did add to the overall suspense and made you super uneasy whilst reading, as you never truly knew what was coming in the next part of the book. It certainly isn't like anything I've read before!

The story centres around two protagonists. Alice, a young girl who got blindly drunk at a party and can't remember what happened in the back of a car, devastated by the possibility of having been assaulted. Nick, a young guy who is on the sidelines of what happened, and struggles to cope with the fact. Both characters narratives were equally thought provoking, Alice's barely told through her own voice, Nick's giving a fresh take on a kind of 'survivor's guilt'. The story chops backs and forth between them and takes a look at the years afterwards, juxtaposing the kind of horror everyone can understand, with the horror of what happened in the back of the car.

As I mentioned at the start of the review, it was all very clever and the kind of book that you can really sit and discuss for hours. Different people will take many different things from the passages, as there is a lot to unpick here. Personally the way that the different styles intersected made me force myself not to skim read, but that is a personal preference and I just know so many people will love this book. It was a 3.5 star read for me.

This was a really interesting book. The cover is very apt as it takes the form of interconnected stories which at first feel like completely different novels. I enjoyed this technique as it made the book feel fresh and exciting, despite the grim subject matter of sexual assault.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review