Book #76 All The Truth That's In Me by Julie Berry

I LOVED this book!!! Don't let the cover fool you, it is not scary. Maybe it is just me but I don't usually read the cover before reading a book, or I add something to my to-read list (it is 300 titles long right now) and have forgotten what a book is about by the time I get around to it, so the cover threw me off guard.

I don't know what year it is (Early America I assume) but the setting is Roswell Station (Georgia?). Four years ago, Judith and her best friend disappeared. Her friend's body surfaces a few days later but Judith is nowhere to be found. Two long years pass and Judith returns out of the blue without a tongue, leaving the details of her disappearance a mystery. Now Judith is ignored not only by the community she left behind but also by her own mother. She spends her days doing chores around the homestead and pining over her childhood friend, Lucas, who is set to marry a beautiful girl from town. 

Everything changes when Roswell Station is attacked in a hopeless battle and Judith turns to the one person she believes can help, the only person who knows her secret. Now she must choose: squash the rumors and finally tell the truth about what happened to her and her friend or continue living in silence and let the towns folk deal with her as they see fit.

I flew through this book. I loved how clues to the mystery were given in bits here and there and you don't get the whole picture until the end. It is written in a semi-diary type style, no actual chapters, so one part may be a paragraph or two and the next a page or two which worked well.I found it very interesting how now that Judith cannot speak the towns folk seem to think she is suddenly mentally disabled even though they knew that she wasn't before her disappearance. It was really sad to see how the lack of communication led people she had know her whole life to suddenly treat her so badly.

Quote:
“There is a curious comfort in letting go. After the agony, letting go brings numbness, and after the numbness, clarity. As if I can see the world for the first time, and my place in it, independent of you, a whole vista of what may be. Even if it is not grand or inspiring, it is real and solid, unlike the fantasy I've built around you. I will do this. I will triumph over you.”