Blog Tour, Review & Giveaway:
Truest by Jackie Lea Sommers

BookCrushin is so excited to bring you today’s stop on the blog tour for Truest by Jackie Lea Sommers! In this post you will find all the book information, an excerpt, a guest review from Teresa, and a tour-wide giveaway! So be sure to check this one out, it is getting rave reviews!

Truest by Jackie Lea Sommers

Category: Young Adult, Realistic Contemporary
Publication: September 1st, 2015; Katherine Tegen Books

Silas Hart has seriously shaken up Westlin Beck’s small-town life. Brand new to town, Silas is different than the guys in Green Lake. He’s curious, poetic, philosophical, maddening– and really, really cute. But Silas has a sister– and she has a secret. And West has a boyfriend. And life in Green Lake is about to change forever.

 

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, Books a Million, Fishpond, IndieBound, Kobo, Powell’s, HarperCollins

 

 

Review:

[book rating=5/5]  

Family drama, teenage angst, teen love; all of these things make up Westin Beck’s small-town summer in Green Lake. West has everything a teenager could want; a loving family, an adorable boyfriend… So what is it that she is missing? When Silas Hart’s family rolls into town, West’s whole summer is thrown into a tailspin. Silas brings poetry, philosophy, attitude, good looks, and secrets to West’s little life. West can tell that her entire world is about to change.

OK. After reading this amazing book, I honestly needed a few days to recover. It was JUST. THAT. GOOD.

Truest is the hauntingly beautiful debut novel by newcomer Jackie Lea Sommers. Westlin Beck is not your average teen. She is a smart girl who is just a little different than her peers. She is also in the middle of trying to find out who she wants to be. She had everything a teenager should want in her high school life. Except she had no idea who “Westlin” is. When a handsome and mysterious Silas comes to town, she starts to question everything she thinks she knows about herself.

Truest is a masterful coming of age story. If you are a fan of books such as The Fault in Our Stars then you have to pick up this book! I almost wish I could pick up this book and read it for the first time again. Sommers really makes you THINK while reading this book. This is not a quick read by any stretch of the imagination, that would be an injustice to the writing.

Pick up this book when you are snowed in (or rain for those of us in the south 🙂 ), with a comfy blanket, and some hot chocolate (and babysitter!). I loved that I had to take the time to figure out the answer to the questions this book was asking not only of the main characters, but of me as the reader.

This would make not only a good read to delve into your personal beliefs and philosophies, but in my humble opinion, a perfect book for a book club… All tied up with a little romance bow!

All in all I give this book a shining 5 out of 5 hearts!

Happy Reading!

-T

P.S. How did you like this book, or this review? Let me know in the comments below!

Guest Reviewer: Teresa G.

My name is Teresa, I was born and raised in Texas. So to get it out of the way…yes I’ve ridden a horse, no I don’t own one. Yes, I wear cowboy boots, they are comfy, but not every day. I don’t wear a cowboy hat, or any other hats usually. And yes, I say “y’all”… A LOT! 🙂 I met Sara in an online author’s fan group, and we hit it off pretty quickly. I am so excited to be invited as a guest reviewer, and get to share some time with all of you lovely people!

I am a busy wife and mom of three. The hubs and I both work in Emergency Medicine. When I am not on the ambulance, or dealing with the misadventures of motherhood, I usually have my nose in a book. And by book I mean my Kindle Fire HDX.

My usual genres include, but are not limited to: Young adult, new adult, paranormal romance, dystopian, and fantasy. Happy reading!

 

Read below for an excerpt from Truest:

It didn’t take long to confirm that Silas was absolutely crazy.

One morning he showed up at my house wearing an honest-to-goodness windbreaker suit straight out of the nineties: purple, mint green, and what is best described as neon salmon. I curbed a grin while Silas gathered our detailing supplies from my garage. “What?” he deadpanned. “What are you staring at?”

“Your windbreaker is just so …”

“Fetching?” he interjected. “Voguish? Swanky?”

“Hot,” I said, playing along. “The nineties neon just exudes sex appeal.”

“Well, I thought so myself.”

And after the sun was high in the sky and the pavement was heating up, he took off the windsuit, revealing shorts and a New Moon T-shirt beneath, Edward Cullen’s pale face dramatically printed across the front. “Vader’s competition,” he said, shrugged, and started vacuuming the floors of the Corolla left in our care.

He also talked about the strangest things: “Can you ever really prove anything? How?” or “I read about this composer who said his abstract music went ‘to the brink’—that beyond it lay complete chaos. What would that look like? Complete chaos?” or “You know how in Shakespeare Romeo says, ‘Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized’? He’s talking about his name, but baptism’s bigger than that; it has to be. It’s about identity, and wonder, and favor, you know?” or “A group of moles is called a labor; a group of toads is called a knot. Who comes up with this stuff? It’s a bouquet of pheasants, a murder of crows, a storytelling of ravens, a lamentation of swans. A lamentation of swans, West!”

One morning I was late coming downstairs, and Shea got to Silas first. The two of them sat drinking orange juice on the front steps and discussing Shea’s question of whether fish have boobs. “I think,” Silas said, sounding like a scholar, “they do not, since they’re not mammals. But mermaids do, since they’re half-fish, half-mammal.”

“Mermaids aren’t real though,” Shea said, the tiniest bit of hope in his voice that Silas would prove him wrong.

“Who told you that?” said Silas sternly.

“You think they’re real?” Shea asked.

“I can’t be sure,” Silas said, “but I might have seen one when I used to live in Florida. Probably best not to jump to any conclusions either way.”

Behind me, Libby giggled. Silas glanced at us over his shoulder through the screen door and grinned. “Libby,” he said, “what do you say? Mermaids, real or not?”

“I don’t want to jump to conclusions either way,” my shy sister said, then turned bright red.

“Smart girl,” said Silas.

That afternoon, Silas and I sat in the backseat of a dusty Saturn, trading off the handheld vacuum as we talked—or rather, shouted—over its noise. I ran the hand-vac over the back of the driver’s seat, while Silas said, “I used to think I was the only one with a crush on Emily Dickinson until a couple years ago.”

“You have a crush on Emily Dickinson?”

“Durr.”

“Did you just ‘durr’ me? Is that like a ‘duh’?”

He nodded as I handed him the Dirt Devil. “But then I read this book that says it’s a rite of passage for any thinking American man. And then I read a poem called ‘Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes.’”

Just the title made me blush; I averted my eyes to focus on the vacuum’s trajectory.

Silas, unruffled, sighed unhappily.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, frowning, chancing a glance at him.

“I finally made it into the backseat with a girl,” Silas cracked, looking hard at the Dirt Devil. “This is not all I was hoping it would be.”

I slugged him in the arm, and his wry smile gave way to laughter.

 

Author Bio: Jackie Lea Sommers

Jackie Lea Sommers lives and loves and writes in Minnesota, where the people are nice and the Os are long. She is the 2013 winner of the Katherine Paterson Prize. She dislikes OCD, horcruxes, and Minnesota winters. She likes book boyfriends, cranky teenagers, and Minnesota springs. Truest is her first novel.

Author Links:

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Giveaway:

One signed and annotated hardcover of Truest

 

 

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