#16thingsithoughtweretrue
By Janet Gurtler
Publication Date: March 4, 2013
Synopsis
Heart attacks happen to other people #thingsIthoughtweretrue
Now that they have a summer job together, Morgan’s getting to know the real Adam, and he’s actually pretty sweet…in a nerdy-hot kind of way. He even offers to go with her to find her dad. Road trip, anyone?
With Adam in the back seat, a hyper chatterbox named Amy behind the wheel, and plenty of Cheetos to fuel their trip, Morgan feels ready for anything. She’s not expecting a flat tire, a missed ferry, a fake girlfriend…and that these two people she barely knew before the summer started will become the people she can’t imagine living without.
ABOUT JANET
Janet lives near the Canadian Rockies with her husband and son and a little dog named Bruce. She does not live in an Igloo or play hockey, but she does love maple syrup and says “eh” a lot.
I’M NOT HER was published by Sourcebooks Teen Fire in May 2011.
WHO I KISSED Sourcebooks Fire 2012.
Jaime’s Thoughts
Morgan has all the friends she needs on Twitter … right?
After a video of her goes viral and she realizes it was her best friend who posted it, everything changes for Morgan. She’s treated like a pariah and her best friend ditches her. But Morgan has her ‘real’ friends… the ones who follow her on twitter and offer her support when she needs it.
There were a lot of things that I liked about this story for sure. Morgan was easy to identify with on some levels. Her obsession with her twitter status and checking her social media is something we all can understand to some extent and I thought that Gurtler did it in a lighthearted enough way to see how detrimental it had actually become to Morgan and her life. While having an online presence is great and wonderful and fun, it can also make us forget about what is happening in our lives around us. While Morgan had reason to want to disappear and hide, it really wasn’t the smartest move on her part.
The catalyst to this story though is that Morgan gets some stunning information from her mother who has suffered a heart attack. The father she thought walked out on her mother when he found out she was pregnant lives closer than she ever thought.
Which leads me to a few things that I struggled with in this book and to be honest this stuff I struggled with is strictly based on my personal experiences and my life (and we all read like that don’t we?) If you don’t know me, let me introduce myself. I’m a single mother. My son has never been involved in his father’s life and vice versa. I have never hidden any of the information about his father from him though, and this is where my strong and very visceral feelings about Morgan’s mother will probably show. I disliked her from the start. I felt her actions and her thoughts on this whole situation were selfish and unfair to Morgan. Don’t get me wrong, I can totally understand her point of view, but I can’t agree with them. Not even a little bit. The way she goes about revealing information to Morgan was so horrible and I, along with Morgan was blindsided and irate at the entire situation.
That’s all I’ll say about that.
So… A roadtrip is in order and two unsuspecting people are prepared to join and support Morgan. Amy, a chatterbox of a teen who has recently befriended Morgan and Adam… the manager at the fair grounds that Morgan and Amy work at… Neither of whom make great first impressions with Morgan to begin with, but she manages to form very special bonds with both on their trip.
I really enjoyed Amy’s character. I can’t tell you much about her, but she adds a necessary lightness and depth and perspective to the story for the characters. And Adam was definitely sweet, though I feel like I didn’t get to know enough about him to really connect on that level with him.
Ultimately I think the real message of this story is that we all make mistakes but you can’t live in the past, and you can’t hide in a virtual world either. Finding friends who will love and support you in real life is important and having family who can do that for you is just as necessary as well.
I will warn you, this story isn’t all roadtrip fun. There is some definite heavy in the final half of the book so be on the lookout for that.
Overall, this was a great intro to Janet Gurtler. This was my first book by her, and I really enjoyed her writing style and though I would have liked a bit more depth to some of her characters, I liked this book and Morgan’s story. If you’re looking for something a bit different with a funny focus on those of us who have a bit of an obsession with our online presence but something that also has some serious undertones, definitely pick up #16thingsithoughtweretrue.
Thank you to Sourcebooks and BookNerdTours for including us on the tour for this book and providing the advance copy in exchange for my honest thoughts. Watch the Blog for the full tour post!
Giveaway is open to International. | Must be 13+
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