This Story Is a Lie by Tom Pollock

This Story Is a Lie

by Tom Pollock

A YA thriller described as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time meets John le Carré, about a teen math prodigy with an extreme anxiety disorder who finds himself caught in a web of lies and conspiracies after an assassination attempt on his mother.

Seventeen-year-old Peter Blankman is a math genius. He also suffers from devastating panic attacks. Pete gets through each day with the help of his mother—a famous scientist—and his beloved twin sister, Bel.

But when his mom is nearly assassinated in front of his eyes and Bel disappears, Pete finds himself on the run. Dragged into a world where state and family secrets intertwine, Pete must use his extraordinary analytical skills to find his missing sister and track down the people who attacked his mother. But his greatest battle will be with the enemy inside: the constant terror that threatens to overwhelm him.

Weaving between Pete’s past and present, This Story Is a Lie is a testimony from a  protagonist who is brilliant, broken and trying to be brave.

Reviewed by readingwithwrin on

4 of 5 stars

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Thank you to the publisher for sending me a physical ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Warnings: Anxiety, murder, mentions of rape, & abuse of a spouse.

After several attempts of trying to read this book, I finally did it! This Story Is A Lie is an amazing book, but also extremely confusing at times and made me feel like I wasn't smart enough at times to be reading it because of all the math involved which is why it took several attempts to finally finish it.

Peter who is the main character of the story is a twin and while he is extremely anxious and afraid of almost everything but is extremely analytical as well, his twin sister seems to have no fear whatsoever and doesn't appear to be analytical at all. They are truly opposites but want to protect each other no matter what. Their mom is the only parental figure involved and over time we start to realize why and how this came to be.

Peter eventually ends up being on the run after getting taken and escaping from people who say they are trying to help him but also aren't telling anything about what is going on or where his mom is. While Peter is being taken and then escaping his twin sister is nowhere to be found and it's up to him to find her and figure out what is going on before certain people catch up to him again. Getting to see what brought Peter to what is happening right now is told in flashbacks he has to old memories that help put the story together and make it so he puts all the pieces together.

Overall I loved this book. Once I got past the first 50 pages of the book and learned about the characters and a little about what was happening I had to know how it ended. Peter's battle with Anxiety is an extreme one and it's one that we see him using several different coping mechanisms for that he was taught. His love of math and being analytical is one of those coping mechanisms we see him using and is one that was interesting to learn about as I read the book. We also get to see him put together what his sister has been up to this entire time and what caused her to change so suddenly and become more secretive and led her to disappear when everything happened that made Peter have to be on the run.
I was not expecting this book to go in the direction it did and it made me absolutely love the book because of it. It went down a road that many wouldn't have with everything else going on and was very well told and explained.
I'm interested to see what Pollock writes next.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 9 August, 2020: Finished reading
  • 9 August, 2020: Reviewed