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Secrets Of Truth And Beauty (2009)

by Megan Frazer Blakemore(Favorite Author)

3.7 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1423117115 (ISBN13: 9781423117117)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Disney-Hyperion

review 1: actually 1 1/2 stars. this could have been a really interesting/good book. the main character won a little miss something or other beauty pageant as a young girl but then gained weight as she grew older and as a teenager no one can believe it. she makes some video for a class assignment criticizing society's perception of weight and beauty that gets "misunderstood" by her teacher and parents. they think she has deep seated issues with her mother/parents because of her weight. and then we also find out that she has some much older long lost sister who ran away from home before she was even born. so the main girl runs off to find refuge with her on a goat farm. (as i'm writing this all out the book is sounding crazier and crazier.) she stays with her for a while, mak... morees some friends, overcomes some of her issues and in the end decides she wants to live there forever. and ultimately her parents decide to let her finish out high school there. and yes, the whole ending wrapped up almost that quickly with it's resolution. oh, which came after she competed in and won some local beauty pageant she entered to re-make her project for school. again, this had potential. BUT, to throw it all off some more -- the big mystery about this goat farm/runaway sister is that she's a lesbian. and i guess the farm was some kind of safe haven for other run away girls like that back in the day. so, yeah. that's that. the thing that bothered me the most about this aspect of the book is that it just seemed like it tried way too hard to make it seem like the homosexuality wasn't the main deal of the book. like it was just a side note and oh so normal. anyway, i wouldn't really recommend this book because i doubt anyone i know would really want to read it and that's about all i have to say about that.
review 2: I really enjoyed this. I really liked Frazer's treatment of Dara's weight. It rang true for me and I found her easy to relate to, whereas a lot of big girl YA characters are just like "I EAT MY FEEEELINGS" or whatever. Dara was more, like, regular. In retrospect, the long-lost-sister and utopian goat farm are kind of implausible, but I never really questioned it while I was reading it. It was a fun read and it all seemed to make sense. I liked the little mystery element, too. A good, fun read. less

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