Sad, honest and brilliant. So much more than a YA thriller, this book tells a story from a very emotional perspective.

If you read the synopsis, you'd assume it's a YA mystery. But it's not really. It's more about what grief feels like than why the narrator is grieving.

It's a sticky book that will glue it's addictive tiny details to your mind and walk with you to your next grocery trip, or sit along with you in your next class. Or sing along with you the last lullaby to your son at night, lingering in the air long after the last syllable. All the while making you think and wonder about all the what-ifs...THAT's how real it feels. THAT's how good the writing is.

Well done, Savannah Brown. Something new and beautiful where only miserable and typically high school used to lay. A fabulously promising new author to follow.

Thank you Penguin Random House for the chance to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Splendid Young Adult novel that I will be sure to pass on to any YA I know who might need some insight or support. It is a novel however and a tightly written fast paced one at that

Exploring the themes of death, loneliness, isolation and belonging it’s well written and worth exploring

The Truth about Keeping Secrets by Savanna Brown a five-star read that will twist you up. I know this is in the teen and YA category, but it will appeal to so any more people than just that genre, so pick it up if you like a good plot with plenty of deep drama and mystery that will keep you turning pages till the very last. This is a story that will stay with you Sydney’s journey will be one that you will be sharing with those who need a little support and direction. I am sure that I will be recommending this to many people I know especially those I come into contact with and need a gentle help, I expect this will do for them what a certain book my aunt gave me at a similar age. It changed my outlook on life and showed me another path that I may not have been on now if I hadn’t read that one novel. This has that power, you can see it flow from the pages. I would so love to see this as a series as I know many more people would be able to see the story that way, and this is one of those stories that needs to be seen by many. Definitely one of the best stories I will read this year and that’s saying something as we are only a matter of weeks into the year.

A strange,unusual story told from a daughters pespective. Secrets and what can be hidden behind a seemingly perfect facade.

This books first half is a fantastic atmospheric,creepy story about grief and associated unhealthy coping mechanisms that also talks about what it's like to be the only girl who is out as a lesbian in your high school, the second half was about the main character trying to piece together a mystery. The writing is gorgeous and I loved this f/f story!

Oh my goodness, I absolutely loved this book and devoured the whole thing in one go!

It's a great thriller, which was refreshing for a YA novel, but also deals with many real-life teenage issues. Grief, sexuality, friendship, online abuse, mental health...

This is going to be a big success in 2019. Well done to Savannah Brown, and thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to read this ARC.

Sydney Whittaker’s father and the only psychiatrist in town, is well respected and an excellent counsellor. Everyone soon knows about his death, but when his daughter learns that he has been killed in a senseless motor accident, she cannot accept that he is gone. They are extremely close and he is just too young to be lost forever. She refuses to join a teen counselling group because she has not accepted that her father is dead. She thinks about him constantly and cannot make sense of the fact he swerved off the road and died. He is an excellent driver and it just couldn’t have happened that way. She tries to rationalise her dark thoughts and find coping strategies. She can’t bear that everyone knows that he has died in an accident and feels myriads of eyes are watching her and waiting for her to break down which she refuses to do. She is distraught, angry and her head is literally spinning with negative and dark thoughts. A great part of this debut novel deals with this situation and her angst.
Soon the alpha girl in their Riverdale, Ohio high school starts to chat with her. She offers to take her to school and return her home afterwards. They strike up a friendship and soon Sydney starts to use June as a coping strategy. She relies on her so as soon as she has frightening negative thoughts, she thinks of June and immediately feels a fraction better. June likes her and she likes June a lot. June is in a committed relationship and has been forever, so there is no chance of a relationship, but June is thoughtful and includes her on social occasions. When Sydney finds out that June was being counselled by her father she is intrigued. June is everything, beautiful, popular, and compassionate. Surely she didn’t have problems? Someone is not very happy with Sydney and June’s relationship it is obvious. Still harbouring thoughts that her Dad was the keeper of secrets for many citizens of their community, Sydney’s belief that he may have been murdered escalates as anonymous texts arrive on her iPhone at key intervals and this strengthens her belief. This middle part of the story when the novel gains pace, is highly emotional and thought provoking and the tension and mystery deepens.
'The Truth About Keeping Secrets' is a Young Adult novel about coming of age, secrecy, friendship and insecurity. It’s well written with some really diverse characters; not all of them good though. I liked Sydney best of all. She was filled with a hotch-potch of unfamiliar feelings and emotions, self doubting, angry, confused but also brave, strong and proactive. Some of the themes were really heavy and issues under consideration were: homophobia, bullying, grief, mental illness, abuse, anger and revenge, making it very dark. To balance it out the novel is lifted by family, friendship, love and loyalty, with poignant scenes as well. I received a complimentary copy of this novel from publisher Penguin through my membership of NetGalley. Thank you for my copy sent in return for an honest and unbiased review. I did enjoy the novel but thought that the pace was unequal and the mystery element could have been accentuated more. The ending was dynamic and punchy. I liked it a lot. I did enjoy the novel and found myself eager to find out what happened in the end. It’s a 3.5* review from me.

This is classic YA with a bit of an edgy twist. A really enjoyable book with fantastic main characters who are different, quirky and all have their own spark. Some LGBT themes but not in the stereotypical YA way of main characters doubting themselves over their sexuality, which is so refreshing. A great addition to any YA bookshelf.

I expected a thriller and instead got a slow paced slightly muddled story about a woman who is exploring her own life.. It was fine in itself but not the book I expected to read

I received an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review

This book is not a thriller, not really. It’s an LGBTQIA+ YA romance/coming of age with a dead body in the background. Which is fine, just not what I was expecting, and a waste of a dead psychiatrist

I thought this was ‘just’ going to be a murder-mystery going in, but it was about so much more: grief, mental illness, love, friendship. I couldn’t stop reading it once I started! I quite liked the writing as well.

The Truth About Keeping Secrets is a slow-paced novel and an exquisite portrayal of grief following the sudden death of Sydney’s father in a car accident.

I have mixed feelings about this book. The first half is an atmospheric exploration of grief and the unique coping mechanisms one can develop. Sydney is reeling from the sudden death of her father and her coping mechanism? Scrolling through a website which posts surveillance footage of deadly road accidents. We delve into her mind and see how she struggles. She’s sad, angry and she uses sarcasm and jokes as her way of brushing off serious conversations.

Moreover, a large portion of the book is dedicated to establishing the relationship between Sydney and June; the golden girl who Sydney is fascinated by. We watch her feelings develop for her, picking flower petals in her mind while she is stuck in the liminal space of ‘does she love me back?’. The 20 minutes she spends in the car rides to school with her are her only moments of joy. Although I empathised with June's story, I struggled to take a shine to her. I wish what we learned about her wasn’t confined to the climax, but rather explored further over the course of the novel.

What let the story down was the second half. It was weak. It is centred around the mystery behind Sydney’s ominous texts and peculiar incidents following her father’s death. However, I thought the answer was predictable from the get-go. Various red herrings emerge throughout which only made me more certain of the foreboding outcome.

The Truth About Keeping Secrets touches upon not only grief but other poignant relationship issues; manipulative friends and abusive relationships. This isn’t a story for the faint of heart. It is predictable, the mystery isn’t too compelling. Nonetheless, there is an abundance of beautiful paragraphs and turns of phrase which made this a pleasure to read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK Children’s for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Truth About Keeping Secrets is a beautifully plotted novel with mystery elements but mostly focusing on a portrayal of grief – one young girl and her journey through the loss of her Dad, as such it is an emotional, compelling story that will have you hooked.

I loved Sydney and engaged with her fully – her distinct sense of loss, her reaching for connections and in doing so her developing friendship with June, the golden girl, who is hiding behind a facade. But why and what does this have to do with Sydney’s loss?

Intriguing and nuanced, The Truth About Keeping Secrets is enduringly spirited and often unexpected- a page turner with real heart and soul that digs deep into human reality.

Loved it. Recommended.

This novel has romance, mystery, angst, humour and some thriller all rolled in one. It has a f/f relationship involving the main character and includes other LGBT characters too. I thought it was great!

First off, i want to say that story kept me fully engaged. I really wanted to keep reading to find out what happened, although it was only towards the end of the book that it really felt like a thriller. That said, the earlier stages of the book are so interesting in exploring how the characters connect through their grief, and the creepy messages that Sydney keeps receiving keep the mystery and the creepy feeling going through the book.

Second of all, the characters in this story have been amazingly written. When the author writes their feelings, especially when it comes to Sydney and June, it feels very real and easy to imagine. A lot of the novel deals with Sydney's anger and grief along with her attraction to June, and It was interesting to see how the characters interacted and became closer as they helped each other.
I also loved how this novel showed different relationships and how people can try to use these relationships to manipulate you. Manipulative friendships and abusive relationships are explored in this book well, and it took me by surprise of the extent of what someone can hide.

Some of the book is slower-paced, in terms of how it explores the developing relationship between Sydney and June rather than going straight after the mystery - but there's a reason this build up is important and i think it makes you connect to the later events much more. I loved the later parts of the book - it was creepy, darkly obsessive, and i was afraid for the girls.

Overall, i thought this was a great read. I loved the relationship in this book and the mystery in the story kept me hooked.

A beautiful book that should not be missed. I felt the story, for me, lacked a bit of pace and 'action' areas but this was more than made up for by the brilliant writing and phrases used. I came away thinking how much I would have liked to be able to write like this - most of the time I am happy with what I have done/am so this is quite a compliment.
As usual, my attempts in the first half of the book to work out who was to blame and what were the circumstances were hopelessly out.

This is the story of Sydney, whose father is killed in a car crash but she believes he has been murdered. As well as grief she has a lot of angst to contend with regarding her sexuality and friendships. She starts getting threatening texts after the funeral and it escalates into a bit of a thriller. It is quite well-written but there are pages and pages of descriptions of feelings that I skipped, and really not a lot happens. The fact that in America rich and influential people are above the law is the most sinister thing in this novel.

[This review will be posted on my blog, acquadimore.wordpress.com, on February 2, 2019]

The Truth About Keeping Secrets is a quiet, slow-paced contemporary novel following a girl who has lost her dad in a car accident – but was it really?

I’m seeing that this is being marketed as an f/f thriller, but while it does have a mystery element, I’d recommend it more to those who loved Nina LaCour’s We Are Okay than to fans of Far From You or People Like Us.

That’s because to me this book felt more like an exploration of grief than a thriller, at least for its first half. The second half did feel more like a thriller, but I also thought it was the weakest part of the book. While the first half was an atmospheric, vaguely creepy story about grief and associated unhealthy coping mechanisms that also talked about what it’s like to be the only girl who is out as a lesbian in your high school, the second half was about the main character trying to piece together a mystery whose resolution seemed – at least to me – obvious from the beginning. I guess I just like introspective character driven stories more?

And as a character-driven story, The Truth About Keeping Secrets is really good, since it succeeds where many other supposedly character-driven books fail: the main character’s voice was perfect. Sydney is a teenage girl who is grieving, who is dealing with her father’s death in an unhealthy way, and she’s sad and angry and using sarcasm as a coping mechanism, and she felt real in a way very few characters do. Even other people’s reaction to her felt very realistic (I have seen something very similar to the Dylan Thomas poem scene happen. Some teachers really are that insensitive). I loved reading about her, and when the focus shifted from grief to the actual mystery, I wasn’t as interested.

This is also a story that talks about imperfect friendships, abusive relationships and that “liminal” space queer girls often find themselves in when they have a maybe-unrequited crush on a girl – the “does she like me or am I just misreading everything” space. The Truth About Keeping Secrets is an f/f book, and there’s a romance between Sydney and June, the seemingly “perfect” girl Sydney becomes close with after the death of her father – but for most of the book, Sydney doesn’t even know whether June likes her back. There’s a scene in which the two girls talk about liminal spaces and I was thinking that “liminal” is exactly how their relationship felt at the moment. I really liked how it developed after that.

Also, the writing was gorgeous. I can’t share any quotes because I read an ARC, but I highlighted a lot of things while reading this.

A great read with lots to keep you enthralled. A couple of different themes to this book but always the lovely who is it to discover!

Gripping from the first sentence the novel goes from a coming-of-age story to a love story to a thriller and back again, dealing with the theme of grief and having a building tension. I absolutely loved both Sydney's cynical, dry humour and the sincerity Brown handles such sensitive topics.