This book had good intentions but absolutely failed to live up to them. Shania is the most oblivious character I've read in quite a while, and she was very unlikable.

This was a tricky book for me. It's about a person I didn't find very sympathetic, in fact, I found her flat-out unlikeable and unpleasant, and she doesn't change. Which is realistic and I don't think you have to like a character in a book for the book to be good. Frankly, the book wasn't good enough or well written enough to pull it off I can be interested in a well-developed, flawed main character but Shania wasn't it. She didn't seem out of touch or naive, she just came across as dumb and irrating.

This is unfortunate because I think the theme and message about bystanders are essential and should be written about more.

I really wanted to like this book - it approaches really difficult topics that need to be discussed in today's society. That being said, I couldn't get over the main character - she felt a little two-dimensional but didn't show much growth over the course of the story. I also felt the ending felt a little unfinished. I really loved the premise, but not the execution.

The Truth About White Lies follows Shania as she moves to Blue Rock after the death of her grandmother. In Blue Rock, Shania starts attending Bard, the most prestigious private school there. Shania is quickly befriended by Catherine, the most popular girl at Bard, and she also has no trouble catching the attention of the mysterious Prescott.

I think this book had the right idea (attempting to bring to light a white girl's blindness to her privilege), but it wasn't well executed. How are we as readers supposed to follow a character's journey if that character is a caricature of a teen girl? I couldn't root for nor relate to Shania at all. She was so ridiculously naive. Like I find it hard to believe she's unfamiliar with Mexican food (a food 86% of Americans enjoy or the 3rd most popular food in the US). It also bothered me how time and again she felt uncomfortable by blatant racism right in front of her face, but she didn't learn or grow from those experiences. I mean I didn't expect her to become woke immediately, but a little growth would have been nice. Don't even get me started on how deplorable Catherine (who really talks like that?) and Prescott were. Awful characters. And what was that ending?

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC, but this book was not something I could ever see myself recommending.

I'm struggling with rating this one. On one hand, I think the message is really powerful and deserving of notice, so I want to give it 4 stars. On the other hand, I just didn't like the writing to the point that I nearly DNF'd it so I feel that's more in the 1-2 star range.

So let's start with what I really liked - this story is about complacent racism. Maybe Shania didn't personally use slurs or make racist jokes, but she was silent. Even when something inside her nagged at her that something wasn't quite right, she stayed silent. That silence then turned into something darker as she was presented with information and chose to do and say nothing. It became a question of "How far are you willing to go?" and I really liked that the term "pre-radicalization" was used to show where Shania was in life. I think without a shove from a cop in the right direction, Shania would have continued to stay silent. It wasn't so much that she chose the right path, but that she was forced onto it. Does that make someone anti-racist? No.

There were some really good things in here that I think I'll mull over for a while. Maybe I'll eventually bump it up to 4 stars. Who knows.

But let's chat about why I just couldn't get into this for the first third of the book. A bunch of names are dumped at once and I had a really difficult time deciphering who was who for a while. Because I couldn't tell who everyone was, I also had no clue what their races were for a while which is a main theme of the book. It is not a good thing that a main theme of the book was lost to me for a good amount of time because I couldn't remember who was who. The writing made it really confusing for about 30-35% of the book that I almost put it down. Which sucks because like I said earlier, this book had some really good things in here that I think people should read.

I think 3 stars is a fair assessment when I take everything into account.

We should begin this review with the statement tackles topics such as racism, Islamophobia, Homophobia and fat-phobia. If you look closer you will find other phobias mixed it. In fact, the topics are so prominent and in your face, that there is a disclaimer in the book before you turn to the first page.

The Truth About White Lies follows Shania – a young white high schooler – who has moved to a new school and has to find her way around the town politics and friendships. It becomes an easy read because all readers can remember being put in new situations where they aren’t sure where they fit it.

As we get deeper into the book, the issues of white supremacy and how Shania deals with the decision to confront or not to confront becomes an interesting and often times frustrating one.

It’s an interesting read, but one that at the end of it could have done a better job at getting its point across if there was more show and less tell. The writing wasn’t as strong as we would have liked and at times felt forced and put together rather than organic.

Good read, not one we would leave on our bookshelf.

This is a fascinating book, and I'm glad we're getting books that are about white complicity and racism that deal with how white characters come to grips with their own complicity in these systems. It doesn't hurt that Cole's writing is stellar and immediately immersive, and the world she creates is viscerally recognizable in its everydayness as well as its toxicity and violence. Yes, this is another book that centers a white girl, but it's about her coming to grips with how messed up (and just plain wrong) that centering is. (Content warning for animal abuse/murder in addition to the racism and racist violence mentioned in the description.)

Wow. I am so impressed by this book. I thought the story was going in one particular direction, but the point it ends up making was much more ambitious and necessary in YA today. I appreciate the lens this book takes and honestly I think it's really brave... this is not the same old story you've read before about a white person confronting their history and unconscious biases and coming out of that journey changed and better, and it doesn't talk down to kids about white supremacy or violence or white privilege. It's an inherently frustrating read for a reason, and while it took me a little bit to be able to distinguish characters, the pacing and narrative work here are so impressive. The prose itself is also really sensory and memorable. I can't wait for this book to come out and be able to recommend it widely to teens at my library. I think it would make a great choice for book clubs or discussion groups.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.