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What I Saw and How I Lied, Judy Blundell
What I Saw and
How I Lied
by Judy Blundell
Reviewed by Jenny McWha, January 2009
Back in the day, I ate up books about WWII like they were candy. It was my period of choice; ripe with conflict, adventure, and some really horrible stuff happening. Yet in all my readings I never came across a book that dealt with life after the war—both for people that participated in it and those that could only wait at home. Well, that is until I read “What I Saw and How I Lied” by Judy Blundell, a book chronicling the life of Evie, a 15 year old in the summer of 1947. Evie’s stepfather has just gotten back from the war, her family is making more money than ever, and she just found out that she gets to spend the end of the summer in Palm Springs, Florida. It is there that she meets the incredibly handsome Peter Coleridge, the ex-GI who is the only person who actually treats Evie like an adult. But Evie starts to become surrounded by secrets—both her own and others’—and eventually she must choose where her loyalties lie.
THE GOOD: What I Saw and How I Lied was definitely interesting in that it explored a time period that many of us forget, a time of both uncertainty and hope. Yet Blundell doesn’t bore the reader with endless facts about the war—it’s woven into her story like threads in a tapestry. Blundell also perfectly captures that awkward stage between childhood and adulthood, that time where you feel like an adult while everyone treats you like a child, but the smell of your mother’s perfume and her arms around you still make you feel safer than anywhere else. I liked how Evie slowly grew up as she realized that strains of anti-Semitism were clinging to America, that the people you love are not always what they seem, and that sometimes you have to make sacrifices that you really don’t like. It’s easy to see that Evie grows up in these pages, and it was fun to grow up with her. I also liked how the author made the story a bit of a mystery—and that I was trying not to see the facts just as hard as Evie was.
DOWNSIDE: I found that Blundell had this amazing ability to catch the dialect of the time she was writing about and use it to create beautiful images of what her characters were seeing. But she only used it a few times! I wish she would have written more of the story in that tantalizing late 40s “talk”. I also found that some of the foreshadowing was a bit predictable, and I think the author could have made it a bit harder for the reader to figure things out on their own. Other than that, I just felt that I got a totally different impression from the summary than what the actual story was about.
GENRE: History, mystery, and coming-of age!
AGE: 12 and up, although I think younger readers may also be able to handle it
OTHER BOOKS: I don’t think I know any books that are like this exactly, but if you like WWII books, try 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas' by John Boyne and 'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak.
RATING: One thumb up and one thumb down!
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