This book really drew me in, and what I thought would be a slow-moving novel turned into quite a page-turner, especially at the end. Despite being an adult author writing for a primarily teen/tween audience, I never felt like Brown was talking down to her readers, which is really important for a YA novel to be truly good.

Brown does an excellent job portraying teenagers, grief, and abuse very realistically. Every time I questioned why a character would make such a dumb/unsafe/etc. (in my opinion) choice, I found myself reflecting on what it was like when I was a teenager and realizing that choice did in fact make sense for someone at that level of emotional maturity.

The complexity with which Sydney, her mom, and June experience grief and try to cope with it - sometimes in healthy ways, sometimes in very unhealthy ways - is also fantastically portrayed, and I really appreciated that.

My only complaint about this novel was the dialogue - not the wording itself, but the way it's written down with single quotation marks (not double) and often with few interjections such as "Sydney responded..." to remind us who is speaking at a particular turn. That could be particularly confusing in long conversations, and I would sometimes have to count back to the last interjection or even the beginning of the conversation to figure out who was speaking in a particular spot.

For me this book was a slow starter, I found it quite difficult to get into and in some ways the narrative felt disjointed. However I am glad i persevered as it turns into a very realistic and tense storyline. I think the author has done a great job of drawing together the problems encountered after a death and then injecting a little something to make it all fell just a bit uncomfortable. I liked the characterisation which was very believable.

For me it just misses the 5 star rating for the start but i would definitely read more from this author

A really gripping thriller that kept me guessing until the very last page. I loved it. Would recommend!

It took me a good while to get into this book, but once I did, I didn't want to put it down until I found out what was going to happen. Judging from the synopsis, I thought that this was going to be a thriller mystery, but instead, it addressed very important and often neglected topics like mental health, male privilege and abuse. On top of that, there was a female/female romance which I always think should be seen more often in YA.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the writing style because it sometimes felt too forcibly 'teen', but it still worked well with the story.

Overall, I think this was a beautiful portrayal of Sydney's inner character development and struggle with grief and identity and definitely kept me engaged the entire time.

This book is well written and enjoyable. The characters are mostly well developed, apart from those who are mysterious intentionally. The plot is slightly fantastical for a YA anti-hero. There is definitely a need to suspend reality during parts. Overall a 4/5 great read.

Sydney's father is the only psychiatrist in town. He is also dead. Sydney cannot bring herself to believe it was an accident. She also cannot imagine why the most popular girl in the school should turn up at his funeral- this must mean something mustn't it?

This book was a heart wrenching portrayal of the grief of a teenage girl- a girl who already finds herself as different from the general populace being the only self acknowledged lesbian in the school.

I found this book very moving, but I also found it rather slow for my taste. I think I was expecting a bit more of a thriller & that is why I couldn't score it more highly.

Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

Oh my! A fantastic book- I think this may be a contender for book of the year. So well written, I can’t wait to see what else Brown has up her sleeve- she has a way with words that just lifts you up and sucks you in to her world. The ending was a complete shock to me. Fantastic.

An incredible portrayal of the fear of death in a YA mystery/grief story. I could not stop highlighting quotes (on my Kindle, don't panic). Full review in my March Wrap Up on booktube! (ReadByJess)

I received a copy of The Truth About Keeping Secrets in exchange for an honest review, thanks NetGalley and Penguin Random House!

Sydney’s dad has just died. It was a car crash – a tragedy, yes, but an everyday occurance. Nothing suspicious. But Sydney thinks there is. She thinks someone else was involved. Someone who made him swerve, or who fiddled with the breaks, but she’s having trouble convincing others of her theory. Her best friend Olivia thinks losing the plot – and is telling everyone at school so – and her mother thinks she’s grieving. But then there’s June. June, who was one of her dad’s psychiatry patients. June, who there is a folder of information about downstairs in Sydney’s dad’s office – a folder that could answer so many of her questions. June, who is keeping a secret. A secret about Sydney’s dad. Sydney starts to get closer to June, who becomes her only friend, until she knows she is so much more than just a friend to her. But with June acting weird and weird text messages about her dad’s death, Sydney doesn’t know who to trust.

I love Sydney. I think one of the main reasons for this is that I relate to her really well. My dad died when I was 7, but I feel that if it happened when I was older, when I was 17 like Sydney is, I think I would have reacted similarly to her. The grief and heartache is raw and emotional and beautifully written about, and for that I commend Brown 100%. Obviously everyone’s experience of grief is going to be different, and there was definitely no suspicion of murder with my dad, but I think it’s so realistically traumatic. There is anger and frustration, but there is also bleak sadness, so much so that the book peaks and troughs in its emotions, which made Sydney feel real and relatable.

I also loved her relationship with June. A slow burn, for sure, but both girls are dealing with things, separate things the other will never understand, each is distant and unavailable and yet they fall for each other anyway. However, it’s not a healthy obsessions that Sydney has with June. She pushes away her other friends, she states clearly she doesn’t like to share her, and her mood completely revolves around June acts – but this is noted. It’s pointed out that it’s not healthy – Sydney knows it’s not. But it’s great to read about a less than perfect relationship where each party knows it’s not good, and it’s not portrayed as healthy or #relationshipgoals.

But, the way Sydney talks about June, their interactions, the ease with which they act around each other, is, for the most part, so sweet to read. Especially because of Bea (but I’ll leave that for when you read the book).

As for the thriller aspect of this novel, again, I loved it. I was picking each character out – it’s them, it’s them – but when it came down to it, to the reveal, you have that ‘oh shit’ moment when you realise where it’s going and it’s brilliant. It was gripping from the start and pacey, even though it’s also not pacey? I was definitely kept hooked throughout – on both the mystery and the relationship – but there were times it was slow and gradual – both which worked really well to build up the tension and make you carry on reading.

However, be warned that this isn’t a happy book, and not only because it deals with grief and messed up teenagers. Savannah Brown has posted on her Goodreads review for this book a link to a trigger warning page on her website, which might be useful for you to read before heading into it (no spoilers).

Please go out and read The Truth About Keeping Secrets! I still think it’s very rare we get thrillers centred around queer characters and this is a really good example of it done well!

4 out of 5 stars.

The Truth About Keeping Secrets is out now!

Sydney’s dad is a psychiatrist, and he’s also suddenly dead. Everyone around her keeps telling her it was just an accident. Sydney believes that there is more to it than that – he was a man that knew everyone’s secrets, so isn’t it weird that he crashed alone with no explanation? Then Sydney starts getting these creepy and mysterious texts, and it all seems linked to her dad. Is she seeing connections that aren’t really there, or is there really something more sinister going on?

I’ve been really excited about The Truth About Keeping Secrets for a while now, especially after hearing it was a queer mystery/thriller. I’m not going to lie, I struggled with it a little at first, it was very character driven and almost nothing happened, which is why I dropped a star and it is definitely a slow paced book that focuses more on characters and their relationships. But, I did really grow to love it and the main protagonist, Sydney.

Sydney is a brilliant, albeit a little disturbed, character. After her father died, she has this acute fear of death and she kind of has this morbid fascination with it. She’s struggling with how to cope with her father’s death and what it all means in the grand scheme of things. She feels guilty for living while he doesn’t. She’s angry, confused, and scared about the world around her. The Truth About Keeping Secrets is less about the mystery and more about character study.

The Truth About Keeping Secrets mainly explores the many facets of grief and how some coping mechanisms aren’t always healthy. I think it did it really well. Grief isn’t the only topic it explores as it does highlight some other really important and difficult topics too such as abusive relationships. I do want to give some trigger warnings though for anxiety, PTSD, depression, self-harm, suicide, death, homophobia, forced coming-out, and sexual and emotional abuse.

Another prominent aspect of The Truth About Keeping Secrets is the relationship between Sydney and Jude, who is a girl that comes into Sydney’s life after her father’s death. Jude is a mystery, and their relationship is complicated but also really great. It is a romantic relationship but it did explore the unrequited crush thing really well.

The Truth About Keeping Secrets is an atmospheric, addictive, intense, and emotional book with a large focus on characters but also with a slow burn mystery, and a book that I would highly recommend.

|3.5 stars|

Sydney loses her dad-the only psychiatrist in a small Ohio town, and that pushes her into the world of depression and crazy pass times, including watching random people die again and again. But what makes it all suspicious is July Copeland’s sudden involvement in her life right after her father’s accident and creepy messages saying that her Dad’s death was in fact, a murder. Sydney, with the help of June, deals with her grief, but the messages won’t stop coming and no one is ready to believe Sydney until she meets Leo.

‘The Truth About Keeping Secrets’ is a look into the mind of a teenager who had lost her father and a child trying to connect with her mom so that they can share their pain. It is also about finding love in the craziest of situation. While the mystery unfolds very slowly, we get to see Sydney’s dynamics with her friends at school and at the support group she is forced to attend.

The story also brings out the dangerous consequences of a toxic relationship and that it is important to talk to people about it and get out of it as soon as possible. The book is essentially YA, the pace is fast and the writing is pretty simple. The plot feels like a drag sometimes, but that also helps us to get to know the very few characters well (and take our mind off the stalker).

Sydney lives in a small Ohio town where her dad was the only psychiatrist for miles before he unexpectedly died. Could Sydney be crazy in thinking that her day, a man whose entire job revolved around other peoples’ secrets, crashed his car along with no explanation? Also, why is June Copeland, the homecoming queen and the town’s golden child at Sydney’s dad’s funeral? When Sydney and June grow closer in the wake of the accident, not everyone is happy about their new friendship. What is the picture perfect June hiding and does Sydney even want to know?

9780241346303The Truth About Keeping Secrets is such a stunning debut novel! This book covers a lot of intense topics, grief, abuse, sexuality and suicide. This means that this book comes with trigger warnings and won’t be for some people. I had heard of the author Savannah Brown through her YouTube channel and I also was a fan of her poetry. So, when I found out that she was releasing a YA novel I was excited!

When first going into this book you have to let go of an assumption that this is going to be a thriller book, because it is not. Yes, it is a beautifully plotted novel with mystery elements throughout, but it mostly focuses on a portrayal of grief. It tells of a young girls journey through the loss of her father and how she deals with the grief and things she is feeling about his death.

It doesn’t just tackle grief though, it also tackles depression, mental health, male privilege, friendship and abuse. It tackles these subjects incredibly well whilst still feeling real. This book isn’t completely plot-focused and most of the dramatics happen within the last 60 pages. A large percentage of the book is Sydney learning to cope with her father’s death and how falling in love as well as other things helps her with it all. This book is beautifully written, and I enjoyed it a lot. One things I enjoyed a lot was the writing style. I would class the writing style are colloquial but not overly chatty which made me enjoy the book even more.

The cast of characters in this book is very well-drawn. Sydney is an awesome heroine. I just wasn’t a fan about how she handled her friendship with Olivia at times throughout the book. Although I feel this was intentional on the authors part to make you feel like this. I also loved June and Leo, they are just two more incredible characters. The cast of character is also incredibly diverse, with June, Olive, and Leo being people of colour and then Sydney, Leo and June being LGBTQ+.

Overall, this book is excellent, and I will certainly be recommending it to other people! Savannah has created a stunning debut that I couldn’t put down. If you a fan of contemporary YA books with mystery elements weaved in, then this book is for you!

I love YA thrillers and this book didn't disappoint at all.

It was very well written, very thrilling with a very good pace. I kept guessing and guessing. But, it was full of twists and turns.
Definitely recommended if you're into YA thrillers, it's hard to find a good one.
Thanks to the publishers and netgalley for the chance to read this arc for an honest review in return.

Really addictive and well written and packaged beautifully too. Loving this YA crime trend as I don't normally read crime/thrillers etc.

Read this in one sitting. Very well written and I really enjoyed it. Lost 5 hrs on a stormy Saturday afternoon!
4/5 on goodreads

Thanks to the publishers for allowing me the chance to read this arc for an honest review in return.

I had been excited for this book to come out before I saw it on NetGalley and I was so delighted when I heard I could read the arc. The book was brilliant, to say the least. It kept me on my toes and had me spiralling for ideas and searching for clues and yet it all still managed to shock and amaze me to no end.

Definitely, a thrilling book that will keep you itching to read more. especially if you're interested in hard-hitting thrillers.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters were great, all with their own stories which feed into the main story. It was an easy read, but still had its twists and turns. I would recommend this book to my family and friends.

This is a fantastic debut for Savannah Brown. It is far more than the run of mill high-school thriller. It takes a deep dive into so many important topics. We follow Sydney in her journey though grieving for her father. It is really raw and powerful. The emotions are not hidden behind cliches. It describes the dark places the mind reaches to in fear in a beautiful and understanding way that has an almost comforting reassuring tone that I feel a lot of people could identify with. While marketed as a mystery, that really is secondary to the exploration of grief. The mystery itself is interesting playing on the central aspects of Sydney’s grief and winding its way to an equally important denouement. It was not the best twist and did wrap up fairly quickly and slightly too neatly for my liking.

I adored Brown’s writing style, it brought so much life to Sydney’s narration with such a fantastic use of language to really pinpoint her feelings at the time. It really cemented I enjoyed how the side characters moved the story forward. I do wish we had more communication between Sydney and her mum and her best friend Olivia. I feel there was more to the stories between them but we never really explored them. I also feel a certain character was brought in just to move the mystery forward adding a convenient skill set (and racial diversity) to the narrative. However, they had the possibility to be one of the best characters and I wish we got more from them.

—– Slight Spoilers —– This book also clearly describes a form of an emotionally abusive relationship that as a teenagers I wish I had so clearly recognised. While to some reading this novel it may seem like it is paying lip-service to the issues of consent. I feel the way that the emotion is discussed in this book is fantastic. It clearly shows how it feels to be on the inside of a relationship like that.
—– Spoiler end —–

I am in too minds about the romantic elements in this book. While not a lot of actual romance took place and I liked how Sydney’s feeling built in a very natural way. I feel that when we explored the potential of a romance it was kind of forced to give us a happy ending that wasn’t needed. It had its positive and negative aspects for me and its why this book just hasn’t made the 5 stars. The true star is really how all the feelings of grief, fear, love, happiness, etc are portrayed on the page. They really do capture them perfectly and that is really what made this book special.

Overall this was a page turner with beautiful writing. While, personally I wish it had a little more too it and delved a little deeper into some aspects and the ending was a little too happy for me, I still really enjoyed it.

The Truth about Keeping Secrets - Savannah BrownHey, you wanna hear a secret?Come closer.Closer.Ok.*whispers* this is one of my most anticipated books of the year.Wanna know another one? I got an early copy of this and now I want to convince you that it should be on your list of anticipated books of 2019 too. So, what is it all about?Sydney's dad is the only psychiatrist for miles around their small Ohio town.He is also unexpectedly dead.Is Sydney crazy, or is it kind of weird that her dad-a guy whose entire job revolved around other peoples' secrets-crashed alone, with no explanation?And why is June Copeland, homecoming queen and the town's golden child, at his funeral?As the two girls grow closer in the wake of the accident, it's clear that not everyone is happy about their new friendship.But what is picture perfect June still hiding? And does Sydney even want to know? THE TRUTH ABOUT KEEPING SECRETS is a page-turning, voice led, high school thriller.If like me, you've been on the internet forever, you'll know of Savannah Brown, either for her YouTube content or her blog content. While this is her debut novel, it isn't her first brush with publishing, she released a poetry collection a little while ago, which I haven't read because poetry and I don't really get on, I can, however, confirm that this does not suffer from the curse of an internet famous author. The Truth About Keeping Secrets is actually a decent debut and an even more engaging and compelling suspense novel that examines some incredibly tough issues without deviating from the plot. This is a book about grief and bereavement. Sydney's loneliness is raw and very real and her grief combined with her growing paranoia and a series of threatening messages just serves to further isolate her from everyone she knows. That is until June appears at her father's funeral, and at his grave and at the window of his office, which is all rather sketchy but what emerges is an interesting friendship dynamic and slowly, but surely, her secrets start unfolding. At its core, this is a fast-paced, engaging thriller with enough intrigue to keep you going and so much heart that all you really want is for Sydney to be ok and June to not be a dangerous murderer.If all that wasn't enough, The Truth About Keeping Secrets has some amazing LGBTQA+ representation and explores race relations in small town America, both of which were done, to me anyway, in a sensitive way. I haven't come across an author who deals with their main character's sexuality in quite the same way as it is here - it's quite refreshing! We don't have a come out scene and we don't have anything highly sexualised, we just have a teenage girl that likes girls and sometimes gets a bit of stick for it. I am singing the praises of this a bit because I was so looking forward to it and I had such an enjoyable time reading it, but I do have another secret to share with you, there were moments, that did seem a bit far fetched to me in regards to the plot, but over all, The Truth About Keeping Secrets is a compelling, suspense novel which is thoughtful and well written.Here's a final secret for you, I am excited for whatever Savannah Brown has up her sleeve next because I have a feeling she's going to be one to watch.

The Truth About Keeping Secrets by Savannah Brown was not exactly the book that I expected. I do like Young Adult books and I did enjoy this but it wasn't the thriller I was expecting. The characters were great, but a little predictable - as was the ending. It was a good quick read that didn't require too much thinking.

Sydney is still grieving the death of her father in a car accident. He was the local Psychiatrist and knew the towns secrets. But did she know his? And why does she think that there is more to it than an accident. She can't accept that he is dead. Then the most popular girl at school turns up at his funeral - why? The 2 become friends and the mystery deepens. Playing detective is a dangerous game.

Thanks to Penguin Random House UK Children's for my advanced copy of this book to read. All opinions are my own and are in no way biased.