The Truth about Jack

by Jody Gehrman

[Leah]

Sometimes I like a light, sweet read. I want a book that I just know will make my heart sing, and The Truth About Jack more than promised me that! Just look at the cover, and it’s published by Entangled’s new CRUSH line, which told me ALL I needed to know, so I couldn’t wait to give it a read!

The Truth About Jack was such a delightful little read. I’ve never read any of Jody’s books before, though I’ve long wanted to read Babe In Boyland, and after reading The Truth About Jack, I’ll certainly be picking up more of her books because The Truth About Jack made me swoon, hard. At first I was a little dubious – because Dakota lives on an artist colony and I was like “OMG HIPPIES?” but that was a total over-reaction on my part (oops) and the artist colony actually sounded awesome. Imagine being able to live in your own yurt? That’s pretty freaking cool and I admire any parents who just let their kids be their own free spirit, ya know?

It helped tons that Dakota was such a delightful lead! I adored her, right from the off, and I felt so sad that the person she called her best friend and the person she called her boyfriend did such a despicable act to her. Friends just don’t do that!!!! Regardless of circumstance. So she was better off without them, I felt. But I felt for her, because they were still the people closest to her, and that’s just the ultimate betrayal.

And Jack! Oh, he made me swoon! Sure, I wasn’t on board with the whole fake-name thing, with the letter writing, but the letters were actually sooooooo sweet, that I kind of let it fly. I still knew it was a big mistake, and would come back to haunt him, but his reasons for doing it were pure and not deliberately horrible. I really enjoyed getting to know Jack, it’s clear he’s haunted in lots of ways, and it doesn’t help that he’s home-schooled which means he rarely socializes with teens his own age (I can attest to how awful that can be) so it was nice to see him come out of his shell with Dakota, eventually. They were just so sweet and their burgeoning relationship was a beautiful thing to behold.

I really, really enjoyed The Truth About Jack. It was exactly what I was looking for, in my book, without even knowing it was what I was looking for. It had humour and heartache, and laughs and romance, and two super, super sweet lead characters with delightful and sparkling personalities. It was such a delightful, quick read. I really, really liked it.