All the Truth That's in Me

Synopsis

When Judith returns to her small, backwoods community after four years missing, it isn’t just her voice she’s lost. She’s also lost her right to be anything other than a second-class citizen. She’s an outcast now. A ghost. Which is fine by Judith at first. Maimed in body and maybe also in soul, she knows that she doesn’t fit in, and that the boy she loves won’t have her. Not now, not anymore. Better to flit through life unnoticed rather than confront the things she cannot have.

But all that changes when an attack on the community exposes the first clues that could lead to the unraveling of Judith’s terrible secret. As clues become a trail, and a trail leads to a culprit, Judith begins to realize that she’s strong enough to face the future, maybe even embrace it, whatever it brings. The question is: Is her community?

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Behind the Scenes

This is one instance when you definitely can’t judge a book by its cover. If you do, you’ll be left, confused, as I was, when you start reading All the Truth That’s in Me by Julie Berry.

The cover, featuring a girl I took to be from the present day, doesn’t telegraph this book’s historical setting—an isolated town, probably from the late 1700s or early 1800s, with a New Hampshire feel to it. It’s identified as “Roswell Station” (another thing that threw me because, come on, “Roswell” makes me think New Mexico) but New Mexico it is not.

Anyway, once you’re firmly situated inside this story’s claustrophobic, enigmatic parameters, you’re plunged into an even deeper mystery: What happened to the teenage protagonist to render her mute, and why is this town treating her like she has a scarlet letter A on her chest?

Judith is a compelling narrator: Though the town (and the traumatic maiming she endured) have rendered her silent, we get to hear her thoughts, her dreams, her careful revelations about what happened four years ago that continues to haunt her—and her community—today. We’re also privy to her love for the boy she can’t have, and as ever, with forbidden love comes an added layer of suspense. I won’t give anything away, but I will say that this is a great love story.

In fact, All the Truth That’s in Me is a great story in general—one I could barely put down, and one I enjoyed equally for its suspense, and its tender development of our main character. Some readers may struggle with its narrative perspective (an odd second person, that even more strangely, seems to work), and its fragmented approach to storytelling. But I think Judith’s strong voice quickly rises above these quirks.

The only slightly imperfect note in All the Truth That’s in Me was the conclusion, which felt difficult to believe given the town’s utter rejection of Judith throughout the majority of the book. But in a story as grim and haunting as this one, I can’t say I’m disappointed with the author for trying to give us a happy ending.