Your friend has gone missing, and you have finally worked out where he is heading. The trouble is, you think he doesn’t want to be found. And he is trusting you not give him away. What should you do?
For most of his life, Mark has been battling to stay alive. When his cancer returns, he decides he wants to do what he wants to do – and not be dictated to by others such as doctors. In other ways, Mark is lucky – he has loving parents, a great friend in Jessie, and a loyal dog. These are his supports – but he has had enough. He wants to be a normal kid, but how can this happen if you spend your life in and out of hospital?
‘The Honest Truth’, by Dan Gemeinhart, is a gentle but emotional tale, dealing with big questions – of life and death, friendship and promises. It will have you in tears; then in the next minute, pondering what YOU might do if YOU were Mark’s friend.
For those who have loved books like ‘the Fault in our Stars’, or ‘Zac and Mia’, this tale presents the thoughts of a terminally ill protagonist who fights to achieve a personal goal. It intersperses these with the thoughts of his friend Jess, and how his parents deal with his choices. How this occurs, and the impact his disappearance has on others, make for a moving story with a powerful message about some of the important things in life.
A closing quote from the Honest Truth states:
“What Jessie said wasn’t a lie. It was just a better kind of truth.”
How this fits with the story is for the reader to discover; just like understanding “the mountain was calling me”, and why. Recommended read.
Lauren Wolk has been able to capture many of the elements of To Kill a Mockingbird (and even some from Jasper Jones) as Annabelle has to deal with the prejudices against the town outcast Toby (a World War I veteran). Toby is the first to be accused when things go wrong and when he is accused of kidnapping Betty (the girl who terrorises Annabelle and her brother) it’s up to Annabelle to protect Toby from an unjust town.
