This is a YA book so it needs to be read with that in mind. We are told that Ella has only 40 days to live. This sets you up for some form of horrific death; however, the book is not that simple. This is a book about the ties that bind us as family...you really can’t pick your family.  It has a dose of the horrific, a love story and an adventure thrown in. The main character, is teen, Ella Black, who has a good life with doting parents, but all is not as it seems. At times the story stretches belief and it can be slightly rambly but this is from an adult perspective. I can see teens loving this book, for its horror, adventure, love interest and fraught relationships. I  particularly liked the descriptions of Rio

I’ve loved the other books by Emily Barr that I’ve read, but this didn’t quite work as I’d hoped.
The premise sounds great. Seventeen year old Ella has a perfect life. There’s hints of a dysfunctional personality when she refers to herself as Bella (Bad Ella, the one who says what she really thinks) and some details that are given to make more credible what is revealed later. One day she is taken out of school and whisked off to Rio by her parents. There she makes some pretty startling discoveries, and it launches a rather incredible series of events.
Ella seemed a little caricatured initially, and this split personality is part-explained later but it doesn’t really fit together. Once in Rio she doesn’t really push for answers, being more content to pursue the hot American staying in her hotel. Of course, they fall in love and he supports her in spite of the kind of chaos that would have most people running a mile! There’s a few near misses, but nothing too awful happens and Ella just happens to bump into kind-hearted characters who all help her out.
I can’t understand why so many reviewers have said they didn’t finish this, but it isn’t a particularly believable story and there isn’t enough detail about the characters of most interest to me.
Still, thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this prior to publication.

As much as I enjoy this author's ability to get into the mindset of young adult this book was really lacking compared to her first book. It was repetitive and slightly long-winded in parts. I enjoyed it to a certain extent but I felt that this was nowhere near as good as Flora Banks.

This is an unusual premise for a psychological thriller, that of being an adopted teenager. It's a complex and at times confusing read. However, I found it an interesting one and would particularly recommend for the teenage market.

Ella is a teenager who has a negative persona she calls Bella and the book takes you on Ella's traumatic journey through coming to terms with being adopted.

Overall, not a book I can highly recommend, but, it's an interesting one if you can stick with it.

2.5 *
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for an ARC copy in return for an honest review.

I'm really not sure what to make of this book. I have read a few of the author's adult novels and enjoyed them, so was curious to read one of her YA stories. I almost stopped reading near the beginning, but persevered and the final third of the book was a lot better. 

The story is about Ella Black, who has a dark side to her personality called Bad Ella or Bella. She is whisked off to Rio by her parents with no warning and no explanation and most of the action happens in the city. Gradually we learn about her past.

I found the first person present narrative quite annoying in places and the author does tend to repeat herself.  Everything happens super quick, and I felt that I didn't really experience Ella's emotions, except when she remembers about Bella. It was a quick, but two dimensional read, with far too many coincidences and unbelievable plot twists and I felt the portrayal of mental illness was patchy at best. And then there's the love interest, which was too good to be true. 

This felt unfinished to me, like it needed another edit, to tidy the story up, take out the repetition and make Ella a bit more relatable and realistic.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2207729952?book_show_action=false

Quite a dark and twisted story line featuring Ella / Bella. 
I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to my friends

A dark tale about Ella finding out as a teenager she was adopted as a child and her birth mother’s history is not as she would like.

Another enthralling (if slightly obvious at times) thriller from Barr with an unusual heroine at the heart of the drama, a vivid sense of place & a satisfying ending. Most enjoyable.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher.  Must be honest did not finish this book,  could not get in to it at all.

I really struggled to get into this book, i managed to get through it, but in the end, it just really wasn't for me. No matter how hard i tried, i couldn't get myself to enjoy it, which is a shame because the plot sounded to interesting
You can't like them all i suppose

I'm not sure what I expected before I picked up this book but whatever I thought I was going to get, this wasn't it. From the beginning of the book I felt like I was wrong-footed and that feeling didn't really go away until I read the last page. 

The Truth and Lies of Ella Black follows a teenage girl with a dark secret as her parents one day whisk her away on a supposed holiday of a lifetime in an attempt to keep their own dark secret hidden. It's actually very hard to discuss the plot of this book without spoilers as so much of the story revolved around the unknown, with secrets slowly being revealed to the reader as the plot progresses.

What I will say is I found something lacking with this book. On the surface the plot is gripping but the reading experience didn't quite match up to the expectation I had for this book. I badly wanted the pace to pick up but I found myself almost becoming bored in between sections where secrets were being revealed and action was happening. None of the characters were likeable, which I feel could have been purposeful, but more than that they often didn't seem like realistic people. Their speech and behaviour wasn't fully fleshed out and I didn't feel any kind of strong connection to them at all which always lessens my enjoyment of a book. If I'm not going to like a character, I at least want to dislike them. Feeling nothing about them leaves me disinterested.

My biggest issue with the book is Ella's love interest plot. It seemed so unbelievable that she would meet her dream boy in the way she did and have him fall head over heels in love with her without so much as a word being uttered that I kept expecting him to be part of the bigger storyline. I was hoping he would turn out to not be as he seemed and have more sinister intentions. In the end, I felt his inclusion in the story just served to pad out the plot and lengthen the book unnecessarily. 

Although my review may seem largely negative I have to say that I did read this book very quickly and found that I didn't want to put it down. I did want to get to the climax and find out what was going to happen and overall I was satisfied with the ending. I do think it would have benefitted from developing the characters somewhat more, and focusing less on describing Ella running around Rio and hiding from everyone and more on her discovering the details of her parent's secret as that was the part of the plot that was really gripping. 

I think I would recommend this book to friends in the future, for the fact that the unfolding mystery is so original and it is a compelling depiction of mental health problems but my recommendation would come with caveats.

Quite a dark book with some interesting characters.

YA is not necessarily my favourite genre so maybe I’m missing a nuance or too but I just can’t help feeling that this book is so full of teen cliches that it’s hard to wade in further to find the author’s actual meaning.

The story is about the ‘dark side’ of a teenager who finds her life boring and wants to escape while not letting that dark side out.

I’m a bit spoilt having read Patrick Ness who manages to find the human condition beyond ‘teenage-ness’ but still speaks true to the younger experience of looking for purpose and meaning.

The character thinks in an immature tone even for someone meant to be young and immature.

“Flying to Brazil, for the three of us, can’t be cheap. Is it from my parents’ savings? Is it embezzled? Stolen? Laundered? I can’t imagine any of those things. It can only be money they had in the bank.”

The constant references to her parents as ‘boring’ and ‘annoying’ aren’t particularly endearing even as they play to type. Adults do think that teenagers consider them boring but the boring part is the lack of interest in the other person’s priorities. It’s the lack of understanding that is the main issue and that holds true across all ages. The thought of ‘boring’, however limits any interest. It’s a cliche.

The storyline is limited. There is a traumatic event that is discovered. I think that’s about it. The dramatic event in the past and the uncontrollable rage of the teenager lead to a dramatic change in a way of life. It could have been interesting if Ella wasn’t written as ‘teenage-y’ and ‘angsty’ as she was.

This was not a book I enjoyed and it might be because it was just too caught up in all the drama of every single thing that happened even when what happened was trivial. It’s a simple story that becomes overdramatic but not interesting.

Thank you to Penguin Platform for sending me a copy of this book.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book as the bulb on the back makes it clear that Ella has a darkness in her which she call Bad Ella, or Bella.
The instances where we see Bella emerge are quite disturbing and the fact she spends all day every day trying to hide this from her friends and family is actually quite sad.
The drama kicks in straight away when Ella is mysteriously removed from school and flown halfway around the world for an impromptu holiday... this just seems so unfeasible in real life, and although she does question it a bit she doesn’t ever go full on Bella and demand to know wtf is going on!
There are clues littered throughout as to what is happening and why, and so it wasn’t such a shock when what I thought would transpire did take place.
What I did find a bit jarring was just how comfortable she was with being on her own and living on her wits in the middle of Rio! Like what 17/18yr old closeted girl from a nice family in Kent is realistically going to survive in Brazil with no one to help her?!
Despite this being a bit far fetched, I enjoyed the story itself and would definitely read more by the author as her writing drew me into the story even when I was shaking my head thinking it wouldn’t really happen!

The perfect rapport and complex plot for the needy teens in us all.. Remarkable.

I found this book hard to get into as it's mostly written in the first person and felt like a continuous stream of thought from the main character, Ella Black. Seventeen year old Ella is a nice person but every now and then something upsets her and she feels Bella, aka Bad Ella, coming on which makes her behave very badly and totally unlike her normal self. Bella kills a bird with a hammer at the very beginning of the book which demonstrates how violent and evil Bella can be.  I found the first section quite hard going as it just seemed to be about a young girl with mental health issues. About a third of the way through the story did pick up as Ella discovered a secret about her identity that her parents had been keeping from her. The plot thickened considerably further when Ella found out the whole truth from the Internet.

I don't want to give away too much of the plot in this review but I do think this book would be good for a book review group as it raises a lot of life issues. Particularly issues of mental health and nature versus nurture issues.

It's a good plot and well-written but I did have to suspend belief at some points. It did have a decent ending though.  With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I simply adored The One Memory of Flora Banks, so squealed with delight at being able to get hold of The Truth and Lies of Ella Black early! One thing I commented on loving in particular with Flora Banks was Emily Barr's writing style and I'm glad to say that her next YA offering is another well written story with a fascinating character.

The book starts with us meeting Ella Black and quickly introduces us to her darker side Bella. Having not read much about this book, I did think that there would be more focus on Bella and the mental health side as it started off that way, but quickly we are taken on a journey literally far away from that idea! There is a bad case of instalove which I know lots of people won't like, but personally and luckily for my rating of this book I don't mind as it just added that little bit of fluffiness to a pretty heavy topic that this book covers.

Overall I did enjoy The Truth and Lies of Ella Black once I'd got into it - there are twists and turns that you won't see coming. I do think that I expected slightly more from it because of Flora Banks being a 5* book for me, which probably isn't fair, but it did let me down a bit with it being so slow to get into. Nevertheless, it's definitely worth a read as something a bit different and one that does keep you hooked once  you're stuck in.

To be honest I have very mixed thoughts about this book. In some ways it was just like I expected, while in other ways, it was much darker. There is an incident in the first chapter, for example, the main character kills a small bird with a hammer. It came out of nowhere, as an introduction to the Ella’s dark side, and it made me feel physically sick. To be honest I considered putting the book down right there and then, because it was very upsetting. But I decided to give it a second chance and kept reading, and things did get a bit better, Ella feels sickened by the actions of her dark side. That scene was written for shock value, to let you know how dark the character can be, but I feel like that probably could have been handled in a better, less horrific way.

The first chapter carries the header “40 Days until she dies”, and the following chapters are counting down. This generates the sense that the story is building up to a dramatic conclusion and did help to keep me engaged. As the countdown continued the tension grew. It also gave me a good idea of how much time was passing, and the overall time line for the story, which I appreciate.

Ella was an incredibly interesting main character, even if she isn’t always likeable. She’s a very internal person, thinking things through a lot, this means that you always understand her motivations and thought processes. Her actions weren’t always the smartest choice, she’s flawed and young, but her reasoning always made sense, which made her easier to follow. She’s troubled, that much is clear, at the start of the book she’s bullied, has a hard time fitting in, and has difficulty trusting people. The character development she goes through over the course of the story is pretty remarkable. It’s one of my favourite aspects of this book. Her situation is extreme, but she learns a lot about her self, and grows a lot as a person.

This really is Ella’s book, her story, and as such all the other characters are very much secondary, and don’t receive much development. The exception to this is her parents, who are quite an important part of this book. Ella’s relationship with them is explored in-depth over the course of the book, including the distance she puts between herself and them in order to protect them from her dark side.

One thing that really annoyed me about this book was that it features a major case of insta-love. When I say major, she makes eye contact with a boy and says hello, and it’s like all she can think about for the rest of the day. She’s met him twice and is calling it love despite the fact that they know next to nothing about each other. They barely exchange two sentences before they kiss. There is no chemistry, because honestly, they don’t interact enough for that, and the whole thing felt forced and unrealistic.

At times towards the middle this book dragged on, and a found myself getting impatient for the story to progress. However, there are a lot of subtle clues in some of those scenes that make the conclusion of this book all the more satisfying. Because that’s another thing I really liked about this book, the conclusion was really strong, and the last 20% of the book had me completely gripped.

Overall this book is not perfect, I had a few issues with the pacing, certain scenes went too far, and the insta-love was just really frustrating. But, Ella’s character development was fascinating, the mystery plot was really well handled, and the thriller aspect had me completely gripped. If you like a young adult mystery thriller, then this is a good one, but it’s not for the faint of heart, some scenes are disturbing, and as I mentioned above, there’s that pesky insta-love. After reading this, I am interested to read some of Emily Barr’s other works, and I hope to pick up The One Memory of Flora Banks soon.

Ella lives in London with her parents Graham and Fiona and their cat. It feels like an unremarkable life. She loves art and literature and these are the subjects she is studying for her A Levels. Ella has a secret that she hasn’t even shared with her best friend Lily or her “boy” friend Jack. There is a darkness inside her that drives her to do mean and terrible things. This darkness feels like a separate entity inside her and she has given it a name – Bella. Bad Ella. 

After a class where Bella came to fore and abused a teacher because she was protecting Lily, Ella is asked to go to the head teachers office. Convinced that she has been “found out” and that she will have to pay for Bella’s crimes Ella is expecting to be reprimanded. Instead her mother is waiting there for her to take her out of school. Pretty soon she is being whisked to Heathrow by her parents where she is about to undertake the journey of a lifetime. 

The Truth and Lies of Ella Black is a great coming of age story. If you are looking for an engaging YA story that will keep you entertained you have come to the right place. This is a tale of Ella realising the life she had been leading and the previous 18 years had all been a form of deceit. Discovering the truth sets her on a dangerous and rocky path that could be self-destructive.