Book Review: Nothing but the Truth and a Few White Lies

Nothing but the Truth and a Few White Lies

By Justina Chen Headley
Recommended by Cindy Tran

    This quarter I read Nothing but the Truth and a few white lies, by Justina Chen Headley. This book is about a girl name Patty Ho. She is half Taiwanese and half American. She lives with her brother Abe and her mother. She doesn’t quite understand the little things in life. She is a freshman, and in English class, she had to write a story about her. When she did, she wrote it in one night. When her teacher read it, she loved it, but she knew Patty could do better. So she assigns Patty to write the “truth” over the summer. In the summer she is sent to Math Camp, because a couple weeks before her Grandma told her future by sticking her finger into Patty’s bellybutton. Her grandma told her and her mom that she would marry a White husband. When her mom hears this, she freaks out and tells Patty that she has to go to the Math Camp. Since her mom married a white man and left her. Her mom doesn’t want her to make the same mistake she did. In the story she learns something very important to her.

If you want to know more about what she does to learn more about herself and her dad, you must read this book.

2 short passages..

Truth:

I am Patricia Yi-Phen Ho. Patty to my friends; Patty-cake to the one aunt on my mother’s side who calls us once a year, and Pattypus to my enemy, Steve Kosanko, a short, stocky bully who’s hated me since fourth grade. He’s right in a way. I may not look half duck, half beaver, but I don’t look wholly anything either. Not quite white, not all yellow.

I believe in the 80/20 rule. Abe got eighty percent of the Mama-looking genes in our family; I got the dregs. There is no mistaking whose son Abe is, with his jet-black hair, high cheekbones, and flat rice cake of a butt. Take a look at any Ho family picture and guess which one doesn’t look like the others? Hint: the gawky girl with brownish hair and large eyes with a natural eye fold that Korean girls have surgically created. It’s as if God cruised through one of those Chinese fast food buffets and bought Abe the full meal deal so he can pass for Mama’s beloved son. When it came to my turn, all that was left was one of those soggy egg rolls that doesn’t qualify as real Chinese food.

I am recommending this book, because since I’m Asian, I can get the feel of what she might think and I love the way Justina, the author writes the story. It’s like she’s talking to you and when Patty thinks it’s almost like you are her in that position she is in. I give this book a 5 out of 5, because it’s really funny and it has a little bit of everything, romance, drama, and comedy.