The Truth According to Us by, Annie Barrows narrated by, Ann
Marie Lee & Tara Sands (and various)
It’s funny I never even read the description for this book I
just knew I wanted to read it because I loved her Guernsey book so much, so
imagine my surprise when this book was not set in Britain but in the American south,
I know authors don’t write about the same place all the time but I guess I
assumed the authors of Guernsey were British. I also didn’t realize the author writes
the children’s series Ivy & Bean, so now that I’ve admitted to being a bad
librarian I will get on with my review of this fabulous book.
Layla Beck a senator’s daughter is being taught a lesson and
is sent away by her father to work for the WPA, a writer’s project that is part
of the New Deal, she is sent to write a history of the town of Macedonia, West
Virginia. She ends up in a rooming house run by Jottie Romeyn who lives there
with her nieces Willa and Bird and their divorced father Felix.
Between Layla’s research for her book and Willa’s snooping
no secret is safe in this small town and those secrets will affect everyone at
the Romeyn boarding house and beyond. When Layla starts falling for Felix,
Willa gets involved because she wants her parents to get back together and no
one is good enough for her father, but is Felix as good of a man as these two
think he is?
The characters in this book are at times eccentric and some
are sad and lonely ( Jottie) but she keeps that sadness bottled up so everyone
thinks she is just fine and when you come to understand the reasons for that
sadness you will wonder why she let it go on as long as she did. But, family
loyalty is important to the Romeyn’s even though some members of the family are
holding back important details of the night that changed their entire life it
seemed like the right thing to do. Ah, but secrets have a way of wiggling to
the surface and when these secrets come to light this family will never be the
same.
I really enjoyed this story and the characters and will read
anything this author puts to paper!
Read by Ann Marie Lee, Tara Sands, and Julia Whelan, with
additional readings by Cassandra Campbell, Danny Campbell, Mark Deakins,
Kimberly Farr, Kirby Heyborne, Lincoln Hoppe, Paul Michael, Linda Montana, and
Arthur Morey. The narration was very well done with the main narrators being Ann
Marie Lee and Tara Sands who both did a fantastic job at bringing this book to
life. The other narrators read letters and histories which I found interesting
and thought it added credence to the letters.
I highly recommend this one on audio.
5 Stars
