The Kindest Lie
What up book people? Aight y’all, I am home from Memphis so back to random books from my bookshelves. Quick reminder - make sure you are following me on all social platforms @iamcaseyrkelley. If you follow me on Pinterest you can pin the books I talk about here to create a reading list. So let’s talk about today’s book. It’s The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson.
Check StoryGraph for content warnings before reading this cuz it has social issues, race, classicism, motherhood, forced adoption and more.
The story takes place in 2008 and follows Ruth who is an engineer in Chicago. Her husband is ready to start a family but Ruth has a secret. When she was a teenager, she had a baby that her family basically did a hood adoption with. Meaning the baby was given to someone to raise but Ruth never knew what happened to the baby.
So she goes back home to Indiana alone because she feels like she has some unfinished business and needs to get some closure. When she gets to her hometown, there’s an economic recession and racial tension cuz the wypipo thought the forever POTUS was gonna take their lil guns away. This is key to some of the conflicts in the story.
The characters in this book are very flawed. But I think these flaws lead to the relatability of the characters which a lot of people like in books. And obviously there is a lie in the story.
Y’all I ugly cried at the end of this book so you may wanna be ready for that. If you’ve read this book, lemme know your thoughts in the comments.