Review Of: What I Thought Was True

Gwen Castle has never so badly wanted to say good-bye to her island home till now: the summer her Biggest Mistake Ever, Cassidy Somers, takes a job there as the local yard boy. He's a rich kid from across the bridge in Stony Bay, and she hails from a family of fishermen and housecleaners who keep the island's summer people happy. Gwen worries a life of cleaning houses will be her fate too, but just when it looks like she'll never escape her past—or the island—Gwen's dad gives her some shocking advice. Sparks fly and secret histories unspool as Gwen spends a gorgeous, restless summer struggling to resolve what she thought was true—about the place she lives, the people she loves, and even herself—with what really is.

I absolutely adored Huntley Fitzpatrick's My Life Next Door so I was super excited to get my hands on her next book What I Thought Was True.  I had to stop and start the book twice, a year apart, before I could finally force myself to finish it.  I don't know if it was that I didn't like the characters or the story itself but something kept me from falling in love with the book.

Gwen is trying to find herself, she's struggling with the fact that she doesn't have a set plan for the future whereas it seems like her best friend and cousin both have their future's mapped out.  All Gwen knows is that she desperately wants to leave town rather than find herself stuck like her parents and grandparents. At the end of the book, while a lot of things have changed, everyone still seems to know what they're going to do except Gwen.  In fact, Gwen doesn't really make a whole bunch of decisions aside from whether or not she is going to give Cassidy (love interest) a second chance, or really, a first chance.  The entire time she seems hell bent on thinking of Cass as an ass but at the same time pines after him like a love sick puppy.  When we have enough of a flash back memory to piece the whole story together (because to be truthful we as the reader have no idea what is going on for most of the book) it turns out that  Cass really didn't do a whole lot to deserve Gwen's wrath. And the advice from Gwen's dad? Not that fantastic....not even that much of a lead up to it other than the mention in the summary.

Whatever the reason, What I Thought Was True and I just didn't see eye to eye.  Even so I'm not giving up on Fitzpatrick, she has proven that she can write a book that I love, this just wasn't it.