YA Review: What I Saw and How I Lied

Blundell, J. (2008). What I saw and how I lied. New York, NY: Scholastic.

It is 1947 and the War is over. Fifteen year old Evie (Evelyn Spooner) lives in Queens with her knockout mom, her stepfather Joe and his mother, the grumpy Grandma Glad. Joe had served as an army sergeant in World War Two, but now that he is back home he owns and runs three appliance stores. One day in September, Joe decides they should take a trip to Florida. After a four day drive that grows quieter and hotter the farther south they go, Evie and her family finally arrive in Palm Beach. Unfortunately, everything is boarded up and closed tight until the season officially begins in the winter. The Spooners settle into Le Mirage, the one open hotel in town and become friendly with the Graysons, a sophisticated couple from New York. Then a handsome young man named Peter Coleridge shows up saying he knew Joe in the War and things begin to spiral out of control.

Although Blundell captures all the details of the time period perfectly with the smoking and the lipstick, the cocktails and the late 1940s slang, it is not the picture-pefect setting or the realistic dialogue that won me over. Sometimes historical fiction can be interesting despite a mediocre story, just because the time period is unfamiliar and I'm learning about a time and place I know little about. Not the case for What I Saw and How I Lied. In a way this story could have been set anywhere or anytime and it still would have had the same emotional weight for me. I was blown away by what is at the heart of this book - the universal story of a girl yearning to be considered a woman. The path to womanhood turns out to be a lot different than Evie imagined. At first, being an adult seems to be all about how you dress and who you kiss. Although Evie thought she understood the grown-up world, what she finds out is that she missed key details or misinterpreted what she did see. "I'd noticed things on the way down, too. I'd seen it all - the way he took off his hat, the way he lit her cigarette, the way she walked away, her scarf trailing in her hand. Flower petals and a pineapple vase. Now I had to look at it again. This time without me in it, wanting things to go my way (pp. 2-3). By the time Evie and I realize what has really been going on all along, the truth is devastating,crushing,humiliating and ultimately maturing. At the beginning of the book being an adult woman seemed so glamorous and sexy, but by the end it was so much more than what you can see on the surface.

From the very first chapter it was clear that there would be a revelation later in the story. The surprise for me was that that revelation was not about murder or death. Instead, it was all about an inner revelation - the shock of seeing the truth of a situation. It was about being a kid one minute - naively thinking that things were one way - and in the next minute turning a corner and suddenly realizing that you are "a sap" (p. 218) and what you thought you understood was completely wrong. The most powerful aspect of this book for me was what Evie choses to do once she finally understands the truth. In the end Evie shows some real grown-up courage that I hadn't seen coming.