Lies We Tell Ourselves
Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town's most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept separate but equal. Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another.
Boldly realistic and emotionally compelling, Lies We Tell Ourselves is a brave and stunning novel about finding truth amid the lies, and finding your voice even when others are determined to silence it.
Review:
[Read: 09 February 2025]This book was so hard to read, not in terms of writing style but in terms of the content. The author does a brilliant job of writing and outlining the horribleness of what the black students had to go through, just to attend school.
There is so much hatred and vitriol in this book that reading it made me feel sick at times and I had considered not finishing it but I'm glad I did read it through to the end. It made me appreciate my life and the rights and privileges I take for granted more.
What did let it down a bit for me though was how fast Linda started developing feelings for Sarah. Linda is an out and out racist and I felt that this wasn't really addressed as much as it should have been as she started coming to terms of liking a black person never mind a black person who's a girl.
And I couldn't see anything about Linda that would make Sarah start to fall for her so that part of the book was a bit weak.
Overall though, this book is well worth a read even though the subject matter at times makes me so mad and upset on behalf of what the black students have to go through. It's emotionally gripping and throughout it all I kept on thinking if I would've had the courage to face what those black students had to go through, and the answer would be probably be no.