danyreads: TITLE: This Story is a LieAUTHOR: Tom PollockRELEASE DATE:August 7th, 2018READ DATE: Ju
danyreads: TITLE: This Story is a LieAUTHOR: Tom PollockRELEASE DATE: August 7th, 2018READ DATE: July 13th, 2018PUBLISHING HOUSE: Soho TeenRATING: ★★★★☆ ARC provided from the publisher via Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review (thank you Soho Teen and Random House!!) before picking this one up, keep in mind that the title of this book isn’t a lie, in spite of it being called This Story is a Lie. this book is unprovable. proving it true also proves it false. so it must be true, right? is it true that this story is a lie? is proving that this story is a lie true, also proving it false, since the lie is true, even when a lie is false by the very nature of its meaning? hmm. yup. if anything is true, is that this book is an anxiety attack waiting to happen. in a good way, though!! “I’m a world-champion paranoiac.” This Story is a Lie follows Peter Blankman, a teen who suffers from a very extreme anxiety disorder and relies heavily on his prodigious mathematical abilities to get by on a daily basis. during an award ceremony held in his mom’s honor, since she’s a very influential scientist, Peter suddenly is surrounded by bewilderment, deceit and muddled truths after his mom is the victim of an assassination attempt and his sister goes missing. on the run and hunted by a strange group of people he’s never met before but who claim to work with his mother, Peter has no choice but to try to figure out what’s happening while facing his worst enemy: his own anxiety and fear. there is no way for me to say too much about this book and its plot without absolutely spoiling everything, but just know that this book unwinds to be so much more than its premise at first glance. it is a mathematician’s fever dream and a philosopher’s wet dream packed into a 336 page mystery/thriller YA book. you are teased not only by the most unreliable narrator there’s ever been, but also by a series of twists that just keep on coming at every turn of the page. there are points in the book where you think you have it all figured out, and then Tom Pollock hits you with another twist out of nowhere. there’s also a very strange element to this book that just doesn’t allow you to discern between truth and lie. there comes a point in the story where Peter’s memories jumble with his anxiety and fear and generally his ethical and moral traits and everything becomes this very organized chaos, which, i don’t know about everybody else, but i just found it enthralling. the way this book unravels into every little crevice and detail that’s been given to you from the very first page is just brilliant. math is also a huge part of this book but i don’t think it was tedious at all. you’re never lost. on the contrary, i think it made this book and its reading experience that much richer, because the way Peter uses math to roam meticulously through his every day life is something that i’ve never encountered in any YA book i’ve read before, much less when it’s paired up with Peter’s anxiety and panic attacks in the way that it is in this book. it’s such a different and strange approach to mental illness, but as an own-voices book, i really like that Tom Pollock chose to meander into it this way. it also makes me wonder if Tom is just a math genius himself, and if he’s not, how much research went into the book and into Peter’s character. either way, it just makes this book that much better. it also doesn’t hurt that This Story is a Lie was HILARIOUS. despite Peter’s anxiety ridden life, he’s also still a genius. he’s snarky and witty and sarcastic and i just kept highlighting different quotes as i read because everything that comes out of his mouth is either mind-blowingly intelligent or just plain hysterical. i loved Peter, i really did !! this book is not what you think it is. it’s also everything that you might expect it to be, but in an entirely different way you might predict. i don’t really know how else to say it, but it’s definitely a book that feels much more exciting than it seems at first glance. GOODREADS LINK -- source link
#reviews