{Thank you to William Morrow Books for my gifted copy}
The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Book Summary:
A masterful, eye-opening novel about the profound racial injustices and class inequalities roiling American society, for fans of Tayari Jones and Jacqueline Woodson.
A promise could betray you.
It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past.
Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. As she begins digging into the past, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. Just as Ruth is about to uncover a burning secret her family desperately wants to keep hidden, a traumatic incident strains the town’s already searing racial tensions, sending Ruth and Midnight on a collision course that could upend both their lives.
Powerful and revealing, The Kindest Lie captures the heartbreaking divide between Black and white communities and offers both an unflinching view of motherhood in contemporary America and the never-ending quest to achieve the American Dream.
Publication Date:
February 2nd, 2021
Genre:
Contemporary Fiction
Purchase Your Copy:
Amazon Link | LibroFM Bookstore Link
My Review:
I love character deep dives and this fantastic debut novel encompasses everything I love about this sub-genre. The characters are multifaceted and imperfect and the plotline explores the idea of how one decision can have a multitude of repercussions.
Told through multiple points of view, author Nancy Johnson explores, race, motherhood, and class while also keeping you guessing and trying to put together the pieces of the main characters’ secret history and how to make peace with the past.
I think it is my fascination with understanding people in general, but learning more about someone often allows you to understand who they are and the decisions they have made.
Reading The Kindest Lie made me long for the days of our in-person library book club because I know it would make for such a layered and impactful conversation. I highly recommend this book and I can’t wait to read whatever Nancy Johnson writes next!
Thank you to William Morrow Books for my gifted copy in exchange for my honest review. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.
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