What I thought was true
I read Huntley Fitzpatrick’s debut, My life next door, last year and liked it very much. It was a sweet romance that went a little deeper than your usual love story. So when I saw that she had a new book coming out, What I thought was true, I immediately put it on my to-read list and looked forward to have it in my hands. After liking the her first novel so much my hopes for this one was even higher and I’m so, so sad to see that the first hit wasn’t followed up by an equally good story but rather a mediocre read I probably won’t revisit.
Gwen Castle is a seventeen year old girl living on an island with her family consisting of her mother, Grandfather Ben, cousin Nic and little brother Emory. They’re poor and need to work a lot so when Gwen gets a job as a caretaker for one of the rich old ladies on the island she takes it, knowing it pays three times as much as what her father can pay her working on his restaurant. She believes this can be a great summer; instead of working late each and every night she’ll get off around dinnertime and will certainly be able to spend a lot of time with her friends. But there are downsides to her job and the biggest one of all is Cassidy Somers. He works as the island yard boy over the summer and Gwen’s promise to stay as far away from him as she possibly can since that night goes up in flames when he suddenly appears everywhere. How will she be able to dodge him all summer?
Oh, I thought this was going to be so good. I mean, it’s Huntley Fitzpatrick. She writes wonderfully and her debut was so good so how could this be anything but? I looked forward to a nice summer read taking place on an island. I thought it was going to be sun and water and that salty ocean smell and sand in your hair… and of course a great love story. While there certainly was sun and water and salty ocean smell there were also thunderstorms and rainy days. And the love story… not that great.
From the beginning we know it’s all centered around Gwen and Cass and that something has happened a few months previously. We’re told that Gwen has a “reputation”, which surely can only mean one thing. We hear about the other guys; Alex and Spence and Cass of course and that dude from freshman year. But what really happened with them? And most importantly, what happened with Cass? Well, that’s the biggest question and naturally Fitzpatrick is slow to give us the details. Very, very slow.
Without spoiling this too much Cass and Gwen has a history which pretty much everyone in the book knows about but the reader isn’t introduced to until about halfway in. Fitzpatrick really liked flashbacks and used them a lot. She also liked withholding information which was interesting at first, until it got boring about a hundred pages in. it’s all about this reputation and the things Gwen has done with those guys but what, what did she do? What happened? It took so long to find out and when I finally did I barely cared anymore. Holding off and creating curiosity is good when writing, but know your limits. You can actually take it too far and Fitzpatrick showed exactly how to do that.
I believe me as a reader was supposed to see Gwen as the victim. She had this “reputation” and guys only looked at her and saw big breasts and a girl who was easy. But the more Fitzpatrick piled on the more anti Gwen I got. It was like “feel sorry for this girl because people are saying horrible things about her but I won’t tell you what really happened until you’re already invested in her.” Well guess what, I never got invested. I wanted to know what she’d done, especially with Cass, until I made a judgement. And when I found out it just wasn’t good enough. Not after that build-up. It was too, too, too much and it just got me annoyed and bored with the whole story.
Gwen’s situation wasn’t nice but it could’ve been solved in a few minutes, or a few days, if Cass had just talked to her and set the record straight right away. Instead Gwen avoids him and he practically ignores her for months until summer comes and they tentatively starts hanging out again. Gwen, after repeatedly saying that what happened between them was awful, was quite quick to forget what he’d done and was more in love with him than ever before.
The first half of the book was something of “should I, shouldn’t I?” were Gwen knew she was supposed to move on from Cass but seemed reluctant to do so and kept giving hints that she wanted to see him again. The middle part was when all the cards was on the table followed by some kind of “we’re together/no we’re not/yes we are.” Sure, there were romantic moments and sure it was nice and sweet but they usually went from zero to two hundred in a few seconds because they just couldn’t keep their hands off each other. There wasn’t really a build-up and that was just another thing that bothered me.
Gwen had an annoying tendency to get really angry really fast about… well, nothing. She just exploded for the tiniest thing and few around her understood why she got so pissed off. I neither enjoyed that character trait nor the character Gwen at all. She did weird things, she said weird things, and she reacted strange. Naturally, like most female YA main characters, she thought she wasn’t pretty even though many told her she looked so much like her mom and her mom was so beautiful. She was very insecure about her body, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but she didn’t hesitate to throw her clothes off to get attention, either. She was annoyed when guys only looked at her because she had big breasts but took every opportunity to use them to her advantage. She didn’t want to be objectified by guys but had no problem doing it to Cass. She just didn’t really add up and I think that was my biggest problem with her. She felt like a hypocrite.
Cass was equally odd. He did this mean thing to Gwen and then kind of blamed it on her. He said things that, if said to me, would’ve made me annoyed, yet didn’t even try to understand how Gwen interpreted them. He stood by the morally questionable Spence through thick and thin but couldn’t tell Gwen the truth about something that had happened months ago. He had this big decision to make, but when he talked about it, it sounded like he already decided what to do yet kept talking about it because… I don’t know.
This is a story with a big cast and a lot of sub-plots. We have cousin Nic, for example, dating Gwen’s best friend Vivien. He wants to leave the island but Vivien wants him to stay and work with her on her stepdads catering business. Little brother Emory has some kind of sickness, we never get to know what, but he needs to be supervised a lot despite being eight. Gwen is caretaker of an old lady named Mrs. Ellington, going through her own problems with her son. There’s so much going on everywhere that I simultaneously want to say that it’s not weird the book was 400+ pages and at the same time wonders how Fitzpatrick manages to bind it all together at the end. It was fun that it wasn’t just about Gwen and Cass (believe me, that would’ve been a snooze fest) but maybe it was a little too much?
I questioned a lot of the moral in the story. Early on Gwen’s dad tells her that now that she works for a rich old lady she should take every opportunity she can to steel from the woman since “it’s better to screw them before they screw you”. I thought that was… an odd thing for a father to say to his daughter. There’s also a case of cheating going on for months which, after being explained, everyone understands because the character in question was being ignored by the partner. I don’t like cheating and I don’t like reading about cheating being excused. There’s nothing excusing adultery and Fitzpatrick sweeping this under the rug mad me really, really upset. It’s like sending out the message to all the young readers picking up this novel “If your partner ignores you it’s totally fine to sleep with someone else, it’s your partners fault for not seeing you!”
Another thing that bothered me a lot was that Gwen was told that “this story isn’t yours to tell.” This was to teach her that there are some things that you’re not supposed to say because it’s not yours to share. So a lot of things happened in the novel and multiple characters didn’t say anything because “it wasn’t their story to tell” despite it being life changing things. I thought it was horrible to see this swept away by people, blaming it all on “it wasn’t their story to tell.” You shouldn’t tell other peoples secrets but this just seemed like a very handy excuse to keep quite even when the morally right thing to do is to say something.
All in all this was a boring read. I wasn’t very interested in picking it up and it felt like it took an eternity to finish. I will make an exception, however, and give Fitzpatrick the benefit of the doubt. When her next book comes out (later this year) I will read it. Maybe this novel was just a one-time flop or maybe nothing will she does will be as good as her first novel but I want to read the next book before deciding if it’s worth reading more from her. This novel, however, didn’t make the cut.
Gwen Castle is a seventeen year old girl living on an island with her family consisting of her mother, Grandfather Ben, cousin Nic and little brother Emory. They’re poor and need to work a lot so when Gwen gets a job as a caretaker for one of the rich old ladies on the island she takes it, knowing it pays three times as much as what her father can pay her working on his restaurant. She believes this can be a great summer; instead of working late each and every night she’ll get off around dinnertime and will certainly be able to spend a lot of time with her friends. But there are downsides to her job and the biggest one of all is Cassidy Somers. He works as the island yard boy over the summer and Gwen’s promise to stay as far away from him as she possibly can since that night goes up in flames when he suddenly appears everywhere. How will she be able to dodge him all summer?
Oh, I thought this was going to be so good. I mean, it’s Huntley Fitzpatrick. She writes wonderfully and her debut was so good so how could this be anything but? I looked forward to a nice summer read taking place on an island. I thought it was going to be sun and water and that salty ocean smell and sand in your hair… and of course a great love story. While there certainly was sun and water and salty ocean smell there were also thunderstorms and rainy days. And the love story… not that great.
From the beginning we know it’s all centered around Gwen and Cass and that something has happened a few months previously. We’re told that Gwen has a “reputation”, which surely can only mean one thing. We hear about the other guys; Alex and Spence and Cass of course and that dude from freshman year. But what really happened with them? And most importantly, what happened with Cass? Well, that’s the biggest question and naturally Fitzpatrick is slow to give us the details. Very, very slow.
Without spoiling this too much Cass and Gwen has a history which pretty much everyone in the book knows about but the reader isn’t introduced to until about halfway in. Fitzpatrick really liked flashbacks and used them a lot. She also liked withholding information which was interesting at first, until it got boring about a hundred pages in. it’s all about this reputation and the things Gwen has done with those guys but what, what did she do? What happened? It took so long to find out and when I finally did I barely cared anymore. Holding off and creating curiosity is good when writing, but know your limits. You can actually take it too far and Fitzpatrick showed exactly how to do that.
I believe me as a reader was supposed to see Gwen as the victim. She had this “reputation” and guys only looked at her and saw big breasts and a girl who was easy. But the more Fitzpatrick piled on the more anti Gwen I got. It was like “feel sorry for this girl because people are saying horrible things about her but I won’t tell you what really happened until you’re already invested in her.” Well guess what, I never got invested. I wanted to know what she’d done, especially with Cass, until I made a judgement. And when I found out it just wasn’t good enough. Not after that build-up. It was too, too, too much and it just got me annoyed and bored with the whole story.
Gwen’s situation wasn’t nice but it could’ve been solved in a few minutes, or a few days, if Cass had just talked to her and set the record straight right away. Instead Gwen avoids him and he practically ignores her for months until summer comes and they tentatively starts hanging out again. Gwen, after repeatedly saying that what happened between them was awful, was quite quick to forget what he’d done and was more in love with him than ever before.
The first half of the book was something of “should I, shouldn’t I?” were Gwen knew she was supposed to move on from Cass but seemed reluctant to do so and kept giving hints that she wanted to see him again. The middle part was when all the cards was on the table followed by some kind of “we’re together/no we’re not/yes we are.” Sure, there were romantic moments and sure it was nice and sweet but they usually went from zero to two hundred in a few seconds because they just couldn’t keep their hands off each other. There wasn’t really a build-up and that was just another thing that bothered me.
Gwen had an annoying tendency to get really angry really fast about… well, nothing. She just exploded for the tiniest thing and few around her understood why she got so pissed off. I neither enjoyed that character trait nor the character Gwen at all. She did weird things, she said weird things, and she reacted strange. Naturally, like most female YA main characters, she thought she wasn’t pretty even though many told her she looked so much like her mom and her mom was so beautiful. She was very insecure about her body, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but she didn’t hesitate to throw her clothes off to get attention, either. She was annoyed when guys only looked at her because she had big breasts but took every opportunity to use them to her advantage. She didn’t want to be objectified by guys but had no problem doing it to Cass. She just didn’t really add up and I think that was my biggest problem with her. She felt like a hypocrite.
Cass was equally odd. He did this mean thing to Gwen and then kind of blamed it on her. He said things that, if said to me, would’ve made me annoyed, yet didn’t even try to understand how Gwen interpreted them. He stood by the morally questionable Spence through thick and thin but couldn’t tell Gwen the truth about something that had happened months ago. He had this big decision to make, but when he talked about it, it sounded like he already decided what to do yet kept talking about it because… I don’t know.
This is a story with a big cast and a lot of sub-plots. We have cousin Nic, for example, dating Gwen’s best friend Vivien. He wants to leave the island but Vivien wants him to stay and work with her on her stepdads catering business. Little brother Emory has some kind of sickness, we never get to know what, but he needs to be supervised a lot despite being eight. Gwen is caretaker of an old lady named Mrs. Ellington, going through her own problems with her son. There’s so much going on everywhere that I simultaneously want to say that it’s not weird the book was 400+ pages and at the same time wonders how Fitzpatrick manages to bind it all together at the end. It was fun that it wasn’t just about Gwen and Cass (believe me, that would’ve been a snooze fest) but maybe it was a little too much?
I questioned a lot of the moral in the story. Early on Gwen’s dad tells her that now that she works for a rich old lady she should take every opportunity she can to steel from the woman since “it’s better to screw them before they screw you”. I thought that was… an odd thing for a father to say to his daughter. There’s also a case of cheating going on for months which, after being explained, everyone understands because the character in question was being ignored by the partner. I don’t like cheating and I don’t like reading about cheating being excused. There’s nothing excusing adultery and Fitzpatrick sweeping this under the rug mad me really, really upset. It’s like sending out the message to all the young readers picking up this novel “If your partner ignores you it’s totally fine to sleep with someone else, it’s your partners fault for not seeing you!”
Another thing that bothered me a lot was that Gwen was told that “this story isn’t yours to tell.” This was to teach her that there are some things that you’re not supposed to say because it’s not yours to share. So a lot of things happened in the novel and multiple characters didn’t say anything because “it wasn’t their story to tell” despite it being life changing things. I thought it was horrible to see this swept away by people, blaming it all on “it wasn’t their story to tell.” You shouldn’t tell other peoples secrets but this just seemed like a very handy excuse to keep quite even when the morally right thing to do is to say something.
All in all this was a boring read. I wasn’t very interested in picking it up and it felt like it took an eternity to finish. I will make an exception, however, and give Fitzpatrick the benefit of the doubt. When her next book comes out (later this year) I will read it. Maybe this novel was just a one-time flop or maybe nothing will she does will be as good as her first novel but I want to read the next book before deciding if it’s worth reading more from her. This novel, however, didn’t make the cut.