What I Saw And How I Lied |  | Author: Judy Blundell
Publisher: Scholastic Press
List Price: $16.99
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Rating:  104 reviews
Sales Rank: 141108
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition first Printing
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 0439903467
EAN: 9780439903462
ASIN: 0439903467
Publication Date: November 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780439903462 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
When Evie's father returned home from World War II, the family fell back into its normal life pretty quickly. But Joe Spooner brought more back with him than just good war stories. When movie-star handsome Peter Coleridge, a young ex-GI who served in Joe's company in postwar Austria, shows up, Evie is suddenly caught in a complicated web of lies that she only slowly recognizes. She finds herself falling for Peter, ignoring the secrets that surround him . . . until a tragedy occurs that shatters her family and breaks her life in two. As she begins to realize that almost everything she believed to be a truth was really a lie, Evie must get to the heart of the deceptions and choose between her loyalty to her parents and her feelings for the man she loves. Someone will have to be betrayed. The question is . . . who?
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 104
 This is a Masterpiece March 3, 2010
Ken Douglas (Landlocked in Reno)
Usually I don't read this kind of book as Mysteries and Thrillers are my general bill of fair, but Vesta read it and knew I'd like it, so she dropped it on top of my reading pile. "This is next," she said, and when she does that, I know the book is going to be good. We spend a couple hours every night reading, listing to music and drinking California Cabs and seeing that it was one of those Scholastic Press books that little girls read, I figured I'd be done in one sitting.
First off, if this is the kind of book preteens are reading in America, then I have hope for the future. This is adult fare, in fact in my opinion, this should be sold as a mainstream big people's book, because it's a masterpiece. It has everything one would ever want in a novel. It's complex, it's suspenseful, it deals with mature subjects many would feel uncomfortable with. It's got a message and it's a beautifully told story. You can't ask for more than that in a book, you really can't.
The story open in 1947 with Fifteen-year-old Evie Spooner and her friend Margie out on the street in Queens, talking about life and boys and they see Ruthie Kalman up ahead and Margie speedwalks till she's up behind, then she steps on the back of Ruthie's shoe, pulling it halfway off and Ruthie speeds up, limping away and Margie laughs. She does this because Ruthie is a Jew. So we know right off the bat that this story is going to mean something, that it's not just escapism for little girls.
Evie's mother is Beverly. She's the kind of girl who turns men's heads. Joe, Evie's Stepfather, was a sergeant during the war and owns appliance stores and then there's Gladys, Joe's mother. I had a grandmother Gladys, my dad called her Happy Bottom behind her back. She was a stern woman, not unlike Joe's mother.
We get the sense early on that someone is after Joe, that he's hiding something, so when he takes Bev and Evie on vacation to sunny Palm Beach, Florida, we sense that he's on the lam. They check into a hotel, where they meet the Graysons, Tom and Arlene and an Army buddy of Joe's, one Peter Coleridge. Evie falls for Coleridge, who is twenty-three and he leads her on a bit, but that's to be expected, because right from the get go we can see that he's some kind of heel and we wonder if he's who Joe is running from.
Joe wants to go into the hotel business with Tom Grayson, but the hotel finds out Grayson is Jewish and evict him. He and his wife were passing as non-Jews and they'd wanted to buy the hotel, but as it turns out Palm Beach, the whole bloody town, is restricted, off limits to Jews and this doesn't sit well with Evie.
Then we find out that during the war, Joe and Peter had stolen a load of jewelry that had been taken from Jews who'd been murdered in the camps and htat Joe had double crossed Peter and Peter wants his share. Then Peter winds up dead during a hurricane and Evie's life is turned upside down as she's forced to grow up.
Maybe I've told too much of this excellent story, but you'll have to get it, have to read it, if you want to see what happens to this American family who'd lived through the war and now have to face it's aftermath. Jews died in camps, but can't stay in hotels, this strikes fifteen-year-old Evie as unfair. Evie is naive as all get out, but her heart is pure. However, even someone with a heart of gold can bend, can see something she knows is true and lie about it. Sometimes you have no choice and all you can do afterward is pray for redemption.
 disappointed February 19, 2010
No Name
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
okay, I have had my eye on this book for a while and had pretty high expectations for it. After reading it, I was disappointed. To me, the whole blackmailing and mysterious death plot was boring. I know it sounds interesting, but the story just didn't work for me. I had to make myself finish this book and that rarely happens. I didn't connect with Evie or any of the other characters and the "romance" between Peter who was 23 and Evie who was 15 was a tad bit creepy.
Things I liked:
The post World War II setting
The title
The cover
The last chapter
Overall, this book was a dud for me. I wont say that it was a complete waste of time, though. Read it for yourself and see how you like it.
 Ask Me No Questions I Tell You No Lies February 7, 2010
Pat Jamieson
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The book had great potential but I was disappointed with the ending. Towards the end of the book the author got a bit weak with her story telling.
Interesting Time In History January 23, 2010
Tabitha Steinbock (Sheboygan, WI)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
It was interesting reading a novel about the timeframe just after WWII - I just don't come in contact with much media that dwells on that time in history. I thought this book moved along very well and it certainly kept my interest. However, I had a hard time suspending belief that a 23-year-old soldier would shower affections on a nearly 16-year-old teenage girl. Granted this perception was from the 16-year-old's point of view so it was a bit warped, but overall it was just sort of creepy and not believable for me.
Nonetheless, there were enough twists and turns in this YA book to have made it worth my while to read. That's probably why it was named a National Book Award winner in young people's literature. It was a fast, easy read that was a nice departure from some of the "heavy" books I've read lately.
Very good January 21, 2010
www.bookshipper.blogspot.com/ (Montreal, Quebec)
I really wasn't sure that I was going to like this book all that much as I am not a fan of novels set in war time and I don't normally care for the "noire" genre. All of that was thrown out the window the instant I opened the book and read the first few paragraphs.
This story of a young girl - Evie who finds herself daring to believe that her family, especially her mom and dad, can be happy and find a new life together after the war is touching in places but also thrilling and had me completely on the edge of my seat.
This story is billed as a mystery of sorts and I loved the way the author introduces completely confusion in Evie's perfectly built up dream.
When Evie's dad decides to uproot the family and move to Florida for an extended vacation, the story quickly develops. There, we meet a grandmother that is less than thrilled with the thought of having her family on her doorstep, we meet an ex soldier who is both gorgeous and huge trouble, especially since he knows things about Evie's dad that is best kept secret. Between a mother who is just a tad too "needy and loving" and a father that has way too many secrets - we quickly find out that nothing, in this story, is to be taken at face value.
The writing is perfect and so is the pace and tone of the book. I like the Evie character because she soon figures out that her life is about to explode and she tries desperately to put all the pieces together and I love that all the pieces are difficult to put together - which leaves me/us guessing to the end.
What a great book!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 104
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