A brilliant mystery, interwoven with natural queer representation! Would never have known this was a debut novel.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley. 

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. 
Natalie.

I received a copy from Netgalley. 

I really enjoyed this one. The story follows Sydney after the sudden death of her father due to a tragic accident.  She’s struggling to accept the facts and deal with the grief. And then a ray of light appears when uber popular girl June shows up unexpectedly. A friendship is developed. But then Sydney starts receiving threatening texts. 

There was something about Sydney’s voice that was incredibly compelling and easy to relate to. Her refusal to accept the facts of accident that killed her father, she starts digging into the death, convinced there’s something more to the story. And then the appearance of the popular girl, June. The friendship developed slowly starts to be something more.

The mystery involved is quite fascinating, nothing is clear cut. I really liked Sydney’s character, could totally understand her obsessiveness when the friendship with June becomes more, it consumes her almost as much as the grief she’s battling. Then when things go wrong there’s that overthinking of was it my fault, what happened? What can I do to fix it? It feels genuine and doesn’t feel over dramatized. 

The writing was excellent, full of emotion, and hard to put down once started. 

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House UK Children’s for approving my request to view the title.

Struggled to get into this and ended up DNF-ing. Just not in the right frame of mind for it I guess. The writing was good I just couldn't get into it.

This book was not for me. I did not particularly like it and ended up DNFing it thus won't be able to provide a detailed review.

I really liked this - but not in the way I expected. As a thriller it fell short of the mark for me and I had called it pretty early on which is a shame, however, as a character study and an exploration of grief it was spot on; Sydney felt real and relatable. I enjoyed the exploration of the dynamic between Heath and June too, although do wish this had been given a little more depth rather than just pulled out to make a good villain. Overall though, a good. read.

The Truth About Keeping Secrets is a coming-of-age story, a love story and a thriller rolled into one package but more than that, it's a book about grief and trying to piece your life together after the unthinkable happens. 

I found Brown's writing about death and grief beautiful and lyrical yet so brutally honest. The main story follows teenage Sydney's trying to find out if her dad's car crash was an accident or murder whilst also navigating friendships in high school and her attraction to June who seems to know more than she is letting on about her dad and what happened to him. It was gripping and full of suspense and tension.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review. This was posted on Goodreads 10 Aug 2019 however has not appeared on Netgalley; many apologies!

I feel that I didn't read the same book as many of the Goodreads reviewers.  It was a fairly forgettable contemporary teen fiction novel.  The writing is good and the structure is good, but it does feel a bit overwritten in places.  

This, however, is not a thriller.  It is a multi-layered, emotional exploration of grief.  The mystery part is barely a mystery and is only referred to as an afterthought.  

It is a good enough story to lose a few hours too with excellent revenge near the end.  Without the revenge, it veers toward a cheesy ending.  There are so many issues in this book- grief, domestic violence, race, homophobia, mental health- it does feel like a game of contemporary teen fiction bingo.

Great exploration of themes in this book and an excellent summary to finding out 'who' is behind it all. Brilliant!

I really liked the writing style and the characters in the book, although there was a lot of dialogue in the book. I did like the story however I expected something else to be the big reveal especially because of the mystery being built up.

I don't normally read YA books, but this I couldn't put down. A fabulously written murder-mystery that encapsulated so much more. Definitely a recommended read.

Unfortunately, I found The Truth About Keeping Secrets fairly forgettable. This could be a little bit because I read it during Uni when I was (obviously) trying to retain information for that, however when a friend asked me about it I could barely remember the plot! A good thing that I do remember is that it’s a fast and easy read, which I devoured in a couple of days despite being stressed at university.

The Truth About Keeping Secrets handles grief really well as we watch Sydney and the other characters handle the death of her dad in different ways. It explores the differences between Sydney and her Mother, and also how it affected their interactions with each other. It also discusses how others treat people who have lost someone, as Sydney gets irritated by others treating her differently afterwards.

The book also touches on the topics of abuse and sexuality and goes in depth into both of them. I won’t say more as I don’t want to spoil the book – but both of these are written well in how they’re portrayed. Plus, how they are handled by the characters feels true to life.

The book has a large mystery element which kept me on the hook throughout, which is probably how I read it so fast. I was constantly trying to guess and second guess what was going to happen and was happily surprised by the end. I would say that we only got into the mystery side about halfway in, so if you’re in for that reason then you may need to wait it out.

Sydney herself felt like the perfect POV character for this particular story. The way she handled her grief, whilst unhealthy, felt extremely understandable. I loved how she was sarcastic, but every so often fragile and emotional. She had the perfect balance that made her likeable and not just a typical grieving daughter that was doing unhealthy activities.

Overall, I have very mixed feelings about whether I actually liked the book or not because I had to google what had happened before writing the review. On one hand, as it came back to me, I remembered how much I was on edge for the mystery part of the book. On the other, I don’t know whether me forgetting so much of it is a reason to show that I maybe didn’t? I feel like the topics discussed in the book were extremely well written and I can now remember them quite clearly, however the characters and the full plot line maybe not so much. I enjoyed aspects of the whole and that’s good enough for me.

Positives
Topics of grief, sexuality and abuse well-written
Teenage voice

Negatives
Forgettable
Pacing at start

Thank you to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

I am always sceptical about debut novels, don't get me wrong I like to support them but I always worry that I will not enjoy the book. This was such a good debut and it surprised me in a really good way. 

Trigger warnings for: abuse, grief and sexuality. However they are managed so sensitively and beautifully that I highly suggest that you do not let that put you off. 

I love Savannah Brown's writing style, it is so beautiful. It just flows so easily and sucks you straight into the story. I really struggled to put this book down. Actually, who am I kidding? I didn't put this book down, I read it in one sitting. This book gives me so many emotions and in turn covers so many emotions and I just cannot praise it enough. 

The characters feel so real, and I built up such a connection with them. I did not want to story to end and the connection to fade I could read this book over and over again. 

Well done Savannah Brown you created such a wonderful story with such beautiful characters. I cannot wait to see what you write next. I will recommend to everybody!

While there's a lot of promise to this book, for some reason, I couldn't connect with it. It seemed to be a little too over the top and while there were interesting themes to be explored, it was all a little too over the top for my taste.

I suspect this will be a hit with YA fans who aren't that bothered by realistic characters and story lines, but it wasn't for me.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation.

There's a lot that I enjoyed about this book. I mean, it's an f/f mystery, so that's already a lot! It is quite a dark book, and starts off very depressing, but I think it does a good job of dealing with some of these heavy themes. I also really liked the sapphic relationship here. I liked the way it was developed, and that was can clearly see the good and the bad about the two characters and how they relate to each other. I also liked that they both address the potential unhealthy stuff in their relationship in the narrative. 

The mystery was...okay. I figured it out soon enough but I think it was organically done and felt fully fleshed out for the most part. I guess I was a little annoyed because when we get to the reveal and find out why everything happened, Sydney's role in it seems...unimportant. Like she could have not existed, and the plot of the mystery would have gone on essentially the same way? The book is a lot more than just the mystery but I still feel like Sydney should have been more than basically a coincidence to the mystery plot. 

I was also quite annoyed at the fact that the book is centered on the death of a therapist but then it falls into the same trope of bad people doing bad things because they're mentally ill. It just seemed to cheapen everything and the book would have been more or less the exact same without that being put into it. 

Another thing that irritated me - and this is mostly because this is something that keeps happening in YA and I'm tired of it - was that the love interest, June, is biracial, but you have never realised if June hadn't specifically said, "I'm biracial," about halfway through the book. Because it's literally never mentioned again, and even though Sydney is obsessed with this girl, she doesn't give much of an indication to the fact that June is biracial. I don't know. I'm just tired of surface-level "representation" that is not representation at all.

In any case, I did enjoy the book and I was turning the pages pretty fast to find out what was going to happen!

SO SAVANNAH BROWN!!! At one point in my life, I was obsessed with her. Maybe I still am. After loving her spoken word, i was so excited about her debut novel. And I wasn’t disappointed at all.

I loved Sydney and June’s relationship SO MUCH. I haven’t read slow-burn like this for so long, and it was so beautiful and GOOD. It’s like IS JUNE FLIRTING OR NOT?!?! Will they? Won’t they? My favourite f/f romance PERIOD!!!

And god, I am in love with Sydney’s narrative. I read this a while ago, but I just remember her voice was so perfectly how a teenager would think!! This has some TWISTS that you won’t expect, and every time I think about this book I just feel heavy because I just remember how amazingly it tackles grief.

Everyone’s sleeping on this book (oh yeah because it’s a UK release haha) but anyways you should pick this up because it’s just REALLY GOOD OKAY?? (Please, please add this to your TBR)

This is a YA thriller bt it is so much more too.  It was a beautifully written account of grief and i read it one sitting

"Dad never goes away. He's in the tress, and the inside of my eyelids, and sewn into my flesh.  This isn't something I can change"

This is: Just another YA book. Complete with script and absent parent and angsty child voice. Maybe a little better than many. With this skirted off mystery on the top. A poor rendition into grief and death. With a smacking coping mechanism to go with. A strange half-present friendship. And an unfulfilled heart. Another friendship. The one from that John Green book. Overall nothing really special. Or new. Just your typical. YA book

All of this is to say that. I hate genre publishing. And that fiction should be a cause for digging into something. Not to tie the strings and resolve a long chapter. And I like deeper contemplation. And that this is this authors’ debut. And she’s hardly 20. Which means she’s allowed. All the tropes and tribulations. All the better if she gets to make the sweet dough for life through it. Even better if it appeals to other people. I just hope the industry makes spaces for spillings.

This is also to say. That I hate myself the most. But the review wouldn’t come out any other way. Take my lackluster apology.

Beez

A strong thriller with a great voice: the writer really nails the tone and voice of a teenage girl, so well that I could have believed that she was a teenage girl herself as she wrote!

It's a fun journey into death, grief, friendship, and sexuality.

This novel is poignant, creepy and brilliantly scribed. Not only does it explore bereavement, but it weaves in other plotlines too. I liked the quirkiness of the characters and the organic underlying romance that was a slow but appealing burner. Sydney is such a plausible character. Her overpowering grief and her struggle to move on and proces it had me near to tears very often. At one point when she discovers the book about grief processes, highlighted by her mother, I just wanted to pick her up and hold her till she was stronger. The ongoing mystery surrounding her father's death and his relationship with her friend June is tantalisingly dangled just out of reach, keeping me hooked till the end. This is, despite the subject matter, both uplifting and informative. Highly recommended.