A story that touches on a lot of current issues - the protagonist's friends being mixed race and gay. Whilst it is always good to address these topics, it almost felt a little overdone for the sake of including them. 

The main story line was interesting although I was expecting it to have a faster pace to the story. Some bits I found myself losing interest slightly.

I took some time to get to read this book but it was worth the wait. This is a young adult story with lots of different themes of love, loss, 'finding yourself', 'finding your identity' and family ties. Once I got into it the book was a page turner. Ella's world is turned upside down just before her eighteenth birthday when finds out that all that she thought was true - isn't. We follow her on a journey to find her true self.
A great read and thanks netgalley.

Unfortunately I didn't like this book. I tried reading it twice but couldn't get past the first few chapters... The summary seemed interesting but the story didn't draw me in. I had a look at the last pages (sometimes it gives you an idea of how the book will evolve) but it didn't help make me want to read more. Some readers might like it but it just wasn't for me.

I will definitely be reading this again. I’ll be looking forward to more books to come from this author.

The Truth and Lies of Ella Black

I’d seen quite a bit of hype surrounding this book and so was eager to read it! In all honesty, it wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be but I liked it!

The Truth and Lies of Ella Black is a powerful and entertaining read aimed at the YA market. Charting 40 days in the life of Ella, when her life changes beyond al recognition. Dramatic, dark and gripping, I think people should look past a lot of the reviews for this book and make your own mind up! Four stars from purplebookstand.

The girl in this book seems like such a spoilt brat. Her parents treat her to a boat to Rio but once she find out she’s adopted she basically turns against them. I went for this book as it was the same author as one memory of Flora Banks but I  couldn’t get into the writing style of that one either. I think I’m going to have to avoid Emily Barr unfortunately

My daughter loved this book, she has just started reading YA and has seen this one spoken about.

She liked the main character and loved  the twists and turns as she kept reading. This was her first book by this author and I'm sure she will read more as she has been raving about it every since.

Unfortunately I didn't finish this book, as I couldn't get into it - nothing against the author or book, just not to my personal taste. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

Unfortunately I could not get into this book and only managed half way.  I think it's a love or hate book.  I'm sure a lot of readers will thoroughly enjoy it just not me.

I really didn't like this book and had to DNF 20% through - I didn't like the writing style and thought the protagonist was awful.

OK, at first I found Ella intensely irritating, but as the book went on, it was great to see how she grew as a person. As a "coming of age" novel, it works really well. Ella sets off to find out who she is on one level, but in the process, finds out who she really is as a person. Liked it a lot.

I adored the writing and setting of this book and loved the detailed descriptions Emily Barr wrote. I also loved how she made it fast paced and didn't allow the book to lag

I'm not quite sure why it took me so long to read this book from my shelf.  The title isn't inspiring, which is all you have to go for on kindle, and it just didn't grab me.  When I did eventually force myself to read it, I found that it was a really good book, with a captivating and skillful storyline - well worth it.

After reading The One Memory of Flora Banks I was so looking forward to this book but found it lacking in comparison. I just couldn’t get into it. Whether it was because of how good the Flora Banks story was I don’t know but for me this was a bit disappointing.

I had very high hopes for this book after reading (and re-reading!) The One Memory of Flora Banks and absolutely loving it. 
This book definitely did not dissapoint! The twists and turns throughout the book kept me guessing - for instance I was convinced that Ella had schizophrenia at the beginning but turns out then things that happen later on in the book changed my mind! 

I will say that this wasn’t quite as good as TOMOFB - however - it was still a really really good read. If you want something that will keep you guessing throughout then I definitely recommend this book!

Although at about the 20% point I wasn't sure if I liked the book, I found I couldn't put it down and I read it in a couple of days. I did like it by the end. Often, with YA novels especially, I think about how I would have written the same book, and with this I just know I couldn't write a book like this. The energy within it and everything that happens is so different to my own style, but that's not to its detriment at all, it's just how I like to look at books. 

Ella isn't altogether a likeable character, I found, but I still wanted her to succeed and was behind her all the way, and I thought Emily did an excellent job of portraying a difficult character. I'm sad it took me so long to read this, to be honest, even though all of Book Twitter kept saying how great it was!

I tried really hard to get into The Truth and Lies of Ella Black but I struggled and had to give up. Sorry this book was not for me.

I've found it really tricky to review this book. It started quite well, I loved the separation of Bella (Bad Ella) and Ella and the way that this was explained to the reader, but the linking of Ella's mental health difficulty with animal abuse did not sit well with me. I was very intrigued by the running mystery of the "number of days until she dies" which did not make sense until the end of the book. I enjoyed the story line of Ella discovering the secret her parents were hiding, but I found the story became a bit too ridiculous and unrealistic from that point on. The vivid descriptions of Rio were wonderful, it made me feel like I was really there, and it was this writing style as well as the need to know how it ended that kept me reading.

Just a warning for sensitive readers - this novel does contain on scene of pretty horrific animal abuse. This is really early on in the book and never reoccurs, yet I did feel that it was graphic and unnecessary. You have been warned.

I was really excited to read this novel as I loved Flora Banks, but unfortunately I was left feeling really disappointed. This novel shared a lot of similarities with Flora Banks - the controlling parents, the life-long deception, the running away to to a foreign country - but it just did not work this time. The repetitive nature of the dialogue worked in Flora Banks because of her memory issues. Here, it just felt dry.

Although the premise of the novel is intriguing, I personally felt that it lost its momentum once Ella reached Brazil. The novel just felt unfocused, never really sticking with any thread for long. Although Ella meets a lot of different people at different stages of her journey, these are always left behind as she moves on. The novel has its share of twists and turns but these seemed to lack tension as they never really built to anything in the tale. Everything comes too easily to Bella. She runs away in a city that she does not know, unable to speak the local language, yet she some how comes up on top by landing herself a teaching job with no passport or references. Whaaaat?

Even the climax felt a bit lacklustre as Ella did not even confront her parents about her lies directly. It just ended with a letter that she wrote to them, a year after the events of the story. For me, this really lacked closure. There was no sense of Ella facing her problems. They just all seemed to flit away during that unseen year. I'm not even sure what the tagline on the front of the book really means, as there is no sense of Ella "dying", despite what the chapter headlines lead you to believe.

Yet, the biggest issue I had with the story was Ella herself. While it is easy to feel a degree of sympathy towards her, she does not make it easy to do so. From the animal abuse of the first chapter to her later tantrums, she is nothing short of a brat. It annoyed me no end that she faced no ramifications for the things that she does as "Bella". It's clear that she has some kind of serious mental illness, yet no one ever really addresses this.

She also is terrible to her parents. Without spoiling anything, I do agree that she has a right to be angry at them for hiding things from her. However, she never truly forgives them. She runs away to the suburbs of Rio and NEVER directly interacts with them again. This is really, really frustrating. You would never believe that she was almost eighteen. She talks and behaves more like a thirteen year old.

The novel also contains a really frustrating insta-love between Ella and Christian. Christian is a darling and I really don't understand what he sees in Ella. They go out on one date and he is so smitten with her that he's prepared to lie for her to the police, send her money and offer her the chance to live with him in Miami. Yeah, this isn't a very realistic novel.

All in all, you might be able to tell that I was disappointed. This novel did not captivate me like Flora Banks did. While I was intrigued for a while, I lost interest when it became clear what was truly going on. Most of my issues were centred around Ella herself, who I found to be a frustrating and immature protagonist. This is certainly not a novel that I'd recommend.

After having read another of Emily Barr's books I knew to expect a story that would make me uncomfortable, and that it was likely to address aspects of real life which are not often acknowledged in novels. The Truth and Lies of Ella Black definitely made me uncomfortable, definitely made me feel disappointed in her behaviour (despite the fact that she seems to be struggling with her mental health), and made me wonder at the wisdom of Emily Barr for choosing to risk bring Ella to life in her writing. At times Ella is distinctly unlikeable but I persevered with the story and was gratified to see that her behaviour is explained, and that she grows as character and is altered by her experiences in the story. Bravo Emily Barr, a risky story line but one which you have worked skilfully. 
I felt that the almost epilogue-esque ending(s) from Ella and Fiona seemed rushed after the slow pace of the rest of the novel but this was my only disappointment.