Sandheder og løgne - Mette Julin

Title: Sandheder og løgne
Author: Mette Julin
Genre: YA
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 358
Date read: February, 2010

Ever since her parents died, Charlotte has lived together with her two much older brothers. They've always gotten along, but now that she's 15 and has started high school, she's starting to think that they are MUCH too strict with her. Why can't she ever go to parties? And why does she have to give an account of where she's been every hour of the day? Slowly but surely she tries to obtain more freedom, and as she's never given them any problems, it looks as if it's going to work... until she ruins it for herself by falling asleep at a party and returning 4 hours after curfew. In return she is grounded for a week, and this sends Lotte into a downward spiral of rebellion, obstinacy and deceit. The straw that breaks the camel's back occurs when the brothers forbid Lotte from seeing her boyfriend any longer, and she has to go to new drastic measures to trick them.

I'll be the first to admit that I started reading "Truth and Lies" with very low expectations as I assumed it was a run-of-the-mill YA novel. Part of the way I was right - the plot is very traditional, but about half way through Mette Julin started focusing more on the heavier threads and spent time addressing the dangerous issues a 15-year-old encounters in school and at parties.

Even more surprising was the ending. Of course I won't give that away here, but it knocked my feet out from under me, and meant I couldn't get the book out of my head after finishing it. That's very rare for a YA novel, and earns it an extra star.

It did have its issues as well - one thread was left hanging, which I really wanted to get properly tied up. I'm hoping that it was left hanging on purpose to pick up in a sequel, because if not, I think Mette Julin was remiss in not addressing it.

More problematic was the writing style, which concentrated a lot more on 'telling' rather than 'showing', especially in the beginning. Also I was unimpressed by both the amount of swearing and her self-censoring in the swearing (i.e. writing "Oh f..." and "Oh s..."). I've always been of the opinion that if you're going to swear (which I'd actually really rather you didn't), you should at least have the guts to swear properly and write the words out in full. Anything else just seems coy.

So +4 stars for plot and making me laugh out loud several times. -1 star for writing style and missing resolution.