To Be Perfectly Honest by Sonya Sones

To Be Perfectly Honest by Sonya Sones
"Her friends
have a joke about her:
How can you tell if Colette is lying?

Her mouth is open.

Fifteen-year-old Colette is addicted to lying. Her shrink says this is because she’s got a very bad case of Daughter-of-a-famous-movie-star Disorder—so she lies to escape out from under her mother’s massive shadow. But Colette doesn’t see it that way. She says she lies because it’s the most fun she can have with her clothes on. Not that she’s had that much fun with her clothes off. At least not yet, anyway…

When her mother drags her away from Hollywood to spend the entire summer on location in a boring little town in the middle of nowhere, Colette is less than thrilled. But then she meets a sexy biker named Connor. He’s older, gorgeous, funny, and totally into her. So what if she lies to him about her age, and about who her mother is? I mean, she has to keep her mother’s identity a secret from him. If he finds out who she really is, he’ll forget all about Colette, and start panting and drooling and asking her for her mother’s autograph. Just like everyone always does.

But what Colette doesn’t know is that Connor is keeping a secret of his own…"- summary from Amazon

Sonya Sones is one of my favorite authors. She writes in verse, but these are funny books! Or at least there's more humor in them than most of the other verse novels I read, like from Ellen Hopkins and Lisa Schroeder. To Be Perfectly Honest is no exception. It's a riveting book and I loved trying to pinpoint when Colette was lying throughout the book. Colette is an intriguing main character and I really enjoyed reading her journey through this book.

Sones does a really good job of fleshing out all the characters and making the reader empathize with them even though we're spending less word count time with them than we might in a prose novel. There's a great relationship between Colette and her little brother, who says the most adorable and hilarious things. I also liked the emotional arc dealing with the strained interactions between Colette and her mother; it's nice to see that sort of relationship spotlighted a bit in a YA novel. The romance is a little too insta-love but it's cute and hits some rocky patches throughout the book so I forgive it a bit.

Overall, please check out this book and Sones' others. You won't be disappointed!

FTC: Bought book myself and got it signed by Sonya! Link above is an Amazon Associate link; any profit goes toward funding contests.