The Truth Project - Hardcover

Medema, Dante

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062954407 ISBN 13: 9780062954404

Publisher: Quill Tree Books, 2020

Synopsis

“A heart-wrenching quest for identity every YA reader will relate to, and a deep dive into the meaning of family." —Ellen Hopkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Debut author Dante Medema explores the emotional fallout
after a teenage girl discovers she is the product of an affair. Told through a
series of poems, text messages, and emails, this contemporary YA is perfect for
fans of Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin.
Seventeen-year-old Cordelia Koenig intended to breeze
through her senior project. While her peers stressed, Cordelia planned to use
the same trace-your-roots genealogy idea her older sister used years prior. And
getting partnered with her longtime crush, Kodiak Jones, is icing on the cake.
All she needs to do is mail in her DNA sample, write about her ancestry
results, and get that easy A.
But when Cordelia’s GeneQuest results reveal that her father
is not the person she thought he was, but a stranger who lives thousands of
miles away, her entire world shatters. Now she isn’t sure of anything—not the
mother who lied, the man she calls Dad, or the girl staring back at her in the
mirror.
If your life began with a lie, how can you ever be sure of
what's true?

About this title

About the Author

Dante Medema is an author of books for young readers. Her debut novel, The Truth Project, was an Indies Introduce title and an Indies Next List Pick. She lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her husband, four daughters, and a room full of alien memorabilia—and books, of course. When she’s not writing, she dabbles in baking, decorating, painting, sewing, and reading up on Enneagram personality types. To learn more about Dante, visit her online at dantemedema.com.

Reviews

Gr 8 Up-High schooler Cordelia plans to coast through her senior project, copying her older sister's idea of taking an ancestry test through GeneQuest, and adding her own spin by exploring the results through her poetry. Cordelia teams up with Kodiak, who's a friend, crush, and fellow poet. Recently, Kodiak's life has been troubled: After finding out that a classmate he impregnated was having an abortion, he drunkenly crashed his mother's car. When work and their project begins and the test reveals that the father she has always known is not her biological father, Cordelia is thrown into emotional turmoil. On a trip to a young poets' conference in Seattle, Cordelia becomes rebellious, drinking and sneaking off, and she ropes Kodiak into helping her track down her father. Set in Alaska where the author lives, this novel is told through Cordelia's poetry and her emails and texts to other characters. Cordelia talks at length to other people, a tactic that allows each character to be fully developed. Poetic elements such as rhythm, similes, and metaphors are well done, and the cast is diverse in many ways: Cordelia's best friend Sana is biracial (one parent is Asian), interested in girls, and lives in a trailer park, and Kodiak's project focuses on stories from his Tlingit heritage. She develops ways of coping, but the descriptions of Cordelia's response to Kodiak's creations are extremely emotionally charged, and readers may struggle to connect. VERDICT A story about family and identity that will appeal to readers who like novels in verse, or books about artistic teens.-Liz Anderson, DC P.L.α(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Edition details

• Publisher: Quill Tree Books
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062954407
• ISBN 13: 9780062954404
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400