Title: Only the Pretty Lies
Author: Rebekah Crane
Genre: realistic fiction
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Bright Lights Dark Nights by Stephen Emond
Rating:
Summary (provided by publisher): Convention doesn’t carry much weight in Alder Creek. It doesn’t in Amoris Westmore’s family either. Daughter of a massage therapist and a pothead artist, inheritor of her grandmother’s vinyl collection, and blissfully entering her senior year in high school, Amoris never wants to leave her progressive hometown. Why should she?
Everything changes when Jamison Rush moves in next door. Jamison was Amoris’s first crush, and their last goodbye still stings. But Jamison stirs more than bittersweet memories. One of the few Black students in Alder Creek, Jamison sees Amoris’s idyllic town through different eyes. He encourages Amoris to look a little closer, too. When Jamison discovers a racist mural at Alder Creek High, Amoris’s worldview is turned upside down.
Now Amoris must decide where she stands and whom she stands by, threatening her love for the boy who stole her heart years ago. Maybe Alder Creek isn’t the town Amoris thinks it is. She’s certainly no longer the girl she used to be.
My opinion: Alder Creek, as we first encounter it, seems like a pretty idyllic place. The reader will assume, as the characters do, that being artistic means the citizens are open minded and accepting. We don't have to read very far to see the cracks, blind spots created by racial, financial, and gender privilege. Unsurprisingly, the addition of a Black friend forces Amoris to see her town through new eyes. It also forces her to take a much harder look at herself and her own family, the cruel and insensitive things that she brushes off in the name of peace. Through the plot, Grace asks us to consider not only what prejudices we might be dismissing but also what the appropriate response is when we come from a place of privilege. Questioning our environment is an obvious message. The more subtle messaging is the difference between being an ally and being a savior. The messaging is a bit heavy handed and Amoris's wilful ignorance becomes a bit tiresome, like Grace is working a bit too hard to keep her sympathetic. If it serves as a starting point to discuss more complex social topics, though, it's worth a read.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
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