Your Truth or Mine? begins with a knock at the door of Mia and Roy Kapoor. A young woman has gone missing, and the police want to bring Roy in for questioning.

As the story unfolds, it soon becomes clear that Mia and Roy are far from the happily married couple they appear to be. For avid thriller readers, it will likely come as no surprise that Roy is hiding secrets from Mia, which go beyond a single infidelity.

What did come as a surprise to me is not so much that Mia also has secrets of her own, but that the problems in Mia and Roy’s marriage go beyond infidelity and the standard-issue loneliness / restlessness that often leads to it. Rather, Sakhlecha explores a darker angle to their relationship, and delves deep into how Mia’s experiences in childhood have contributed to how she deals with her current situation.

At the end, the bad guy is someone I didn’t suspect until fairly late in the story. The reveal of their identity is powerful not so much in the shock of it being someone unexpected. Rather, its power is in the realization that this person’s actions further compound on the themes of vulnerability, trust, and the abuse thereof, which were among the drivers of the narrative.

I enjoyed this book. It’s a solid, twisty, psychological thriller that kept me turning the pages even in the midst of a soporific heat wave. More than the thriller aspect, however, I like how it explored the overall twistiness of relationships, and how trauma from particular relationships in one’s past can contribute to a destructive cycle in one’s relationships moving forward.

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Thank you to Publisher’s Group Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Private Lessons is not at all an easy read, but it’s done really, really well.

(TW: grooming, rape, death of a parent, racism, casual mention of off-page animal death)

Claire Alalay is a 17-year-old piano player who takes lessons from the charismatic and talented Paul Avon. The blurb says it’s a book for the #MeToo era, so I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Paul does something unforgiveable.

I’ll be delving deeply into how well Salaysay treats the #MeToo stuff, so first, I want to say that I also really like how Salaysay explored the casual racism and sexism Claire and other BIPOC characters experience. I especially love a scene at a music competition where a white man asks Claire, her mom, and Claire’s Vietnamese-American BFF Tash what their nationality is, because it was so realistic. I especially love the little details that make it especially realistic: how the man assumes the three Asian-Americans are part of the same family and is shocked that Tash isn’t Filipino-American; how Claire’s mom doesn’t know how to respond and so just giggles nervously; how Claire’s white BFF Julia is totally oblivious of what’s happening; how the man has no idea how to respond when the question is turned back on him, and especially, how this isn’t the first time in the story that someone asks Claire this question. Having been asked that question many times myself, I can attest that this scene felt incredibly nuanced and real, and I love how Salaysay wrote it.

There’s also Julia’s perception of Claire’s looks, which again Salaysay handles so subtly that it’s hard to tell whether Julia is somewhat jealous of Claire’s looks because she genuinely thinks Claire is pretty, or if Julia is also somewhat being racist and fetishizing Claire’s Asian-ness. Salaysay kinda blurs the line on this several times, with just-subtle-enough comments from Julia that it makes you a bit uncomfortable, but also, maybe you’re imagining things? There’s a particularly gross moment after Julia learns about the #MeToo stuff, where she outright tells Claire “You’re very sensual. Asian girls. Men kind of slobber all over them.” This was said somewhat within the context of Julia saying Paul’s behaviour was “disturbing” and so could be read as an indictment of Paul’s possible Asian fetish, but it’s also equally possible that Julia believes that Asian girls are “sensual”, in which case, how much of a friend is Julia, really, to Claire? Either way, Salaysay handles this with just enough ambiguity that it’s difficult to label Julia as racist or otherwise, which again feels very realistic and true-to-life.

I also like how Salaysay depicted Claire’s mom’s grief (and possible depression) over Claire’s dad’s passing. Again, it’s the subtle details that Salaysay gets right that makes this work: how Claire’s mom can spend an entire day in bed but then turn cheerful when a church friend comes over; how Claire’s mom turns to her faith for comfort and, for a long time, resists the idea of therapy; how Claire’s mom also finds moments of joy, like in eating a burger and fries with Claire from a drive-through. I love the subtle Filipinisms that make Claire’s mom real — how she says “don’t open the light” instead of “don’t turn on the light”; how she calls Claire “anak” as a term of endearment; how she has a bunch of Virgin Mary, Jesus, and saint statues around the house; how she says prayer is what gets her through; even how she responds when Claire says prayer doesn’t seem to be enough. I love how Salaysay has created Claire’s mom, and I love the relationship between mother and daughter.

Now on to the #MeToo stuff, which as I said, I think Salaysay handles really well. (Minor spoilers follow — nothing surprising, I think, if you’re familiar with the #MeToo movement, but if you want zero spoilers, just skip the rest of my review.)

There are unfortunately far too many possible permutations of #MeToo stories, and I think the one most people immediately think of are incidents when the perpetrator physically forces themselves on the victim, or the victim is drugged or incapacitated in some way.

Less well-known, yet equally horrific, are the more gradual scenarios, where the perpetrator grooms the victim in many subtle, hard-to-pinpoint ways. In this case, Paul is a very demanding teacher, who uses Claire’s admiration of him to push her sometimes to the point of physical injury (at one point, her wrist hurts from her practicing, and she thinks at least Paul will think she worked hard). He also touches her, ostensibly to adjust her position so her playing improves, and something the author does really well is keep the entire thing super subtle. We’re seeing the story from Claire’s POV, so like Claire, we can see all of Paul’s comments on her appearance, his overtures of friendship beyond their lessons, his subtle bits of emotional manipulation to keep her starving for his approval, etc, as potentially innocent, simply a demanding teacher pushing his student to do better. Yet because we’re also distanced from Claire’s situation, we can also feel the slight sheen of wrongness throughout, the slight twinge of something not being right, even though Paul has technically not yet done anything wrong.

Paul’s behaviour throughout the novel is a particularly insidious form of abuse, because it’s so hard to pinpoint exactly what he’s doing that’s wrong, yet we can already see how his behaviour is already starting to change Claire, and make her more dependent on his approval.

Something else that may also be easy to miss in conversations around #MeToo — and that Salaysay explores especially well in this novel — is how easy it is for #MeToo victims to feel complicit in what happens to them. Claire is undeniably attracted to Paul. With the particular #MeToo incident, she specifically sets out wanting Paul to kiss her. Salaysay takes us through Claire’s thoughts and emotions in this particular chapter with heartbreaking clarity, as things shift from giddiness over Paul’s attention to confusion, shame and guilt at how things turn out. In particular, when Paul shifts from tender contact to a more explicit, self-serving act, Salaysay’s language shifts as well. We are right with Claire when she realizes that Paul doesn’t care about her as she cares about him, and because of that, what she ends up doing for Paul feels dirty. There’s a point where Claire tries to back out, and Paul physically stops her from doing so, which I figure Salaysay included so it’s super crystal clear that what happened was criminal. But even without that moment, I think the wrongness in the entire scene felt heartbreakingly real. Salaysay also handled the fallout from the incident in a sensitive, all-too-realistic way.

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Thank you to Candlewick Press for an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

I’m a huge fan of Sandhya Menon’s contemporary YA romances. When Dimple Met Rishi and There’s Something About Sweetie are both sweet, frothy, utterly feel-good romances that also tackle issues around family relationships. 10 Things I Hate About Pinky reads a bit younger than the earlier novels, but otherwise fits right into that mold.

Pinky Kumar is a proud activist who resents that her mom views her only as a trouble-maker. When her family visits their beach house for the summer, Pinky finds herself unfavourably compared to her ‘perfect’ cousin Dolly, and unfairly accused of mischief she didn’t commit.

Enter Samir, a friend of Pinky’s friend Ashish (from There’s Something About Sweetie). Samir is everything Pinky’s parents want her to be — an aspiring lawyer who lives his life by the rules, plans out his daily schedule, and writes out lists for everything. When Samir’s summer internship falls through, Pinky invites him over to be her fake boyfriend. In exchange, Samir gets the opportunity to impress Pinky’s mom, a high-powered corporate attorney, and possibly gain himself an internship at the mom’s firm for the fall. Samir and Pinky are polar opposites personality-wise, but as they get to know each other better, sparks fly, and lots and lots of tender, fluffy, adorable feelings develop.

I love how Pinky and Samir’s relationship helps them both grow and confront their own personal shortcomings. For example, even though a lot of Pinky’s activism is for good causes, Samir rightly points out that she tends to present them to her parents in a very combative way, and that she doesn’t bother to tell them about all the thought and preparation she puts in before making a decision to take up a cause. Pinky’s parents therefore see her as a troublemaker not just because of their own biases about some of her choices, but also because Pinky herself seems to like presenting that persona. On the flip side, Pinky prompts Samir to question why list-making is so important to him, and how much his mom’s cancer journey has affected his approach to life.

Samir is a sweet hero, a classic Sandhya Menon cinnamon roll type who is oh-so-easy to fall in love with. He has his flaws as well, and I like how his relationship with Pinky forces him to examine why list-making is so important to him. I also love the background information about his mom, and how her cancer journey affected their relationship. I do wish Samir’s relationship with his mom was explored more — at the start of the book, Pinky called his mom overprotective, but we didn’t really get to see any of that develop later on. Samir makes a big life decision at the end of the book that he talks to his mom about, but that conversation takes place off-screen, and so I wish we’d seen a bit more of that relationship on the page.

And Pinky is a wonderfully complex, complicated heroine. I love that a lot of her activism in the novel is around animal welfare (a cause I personally care about), and I especially love that her activism is less about ‘doing the right thing’, and more about caring for particular persons/creatures. In one of my favourite plot threads, Pinky rescues a possum on the road whom she calls Drama Queen (DQ for short). DQ has an unfortunate tendency to play dead at the slightest hint of a threat, and Pinky worries this will make her vulnerable to predators. I love that despite the impulsiveness of the initial rescue, Pinky does due diligence in researching possum care, to give DQ the best care possible.

Later on, Pinky’s big cause is the butterfly habitat in the town, which is scheduled to be demolished to make space for a condo. I love that Pinky’s reason for fighting for the habitat is that she and her family have had lots of good memories there, and she wants to preserve those memories because of the contentious relationship she now has with her parents.

I also like that Pinky joins the protest already being organized by the town residents, rather than starting her own. Because her family visits the area only in the summer, I couldn’t help feeling that the town residents have more at stake than she does with the butterfly habitat issue. I’ve read YA books where teens from wealthy families save  a town while the year-round residents are mostly passive, so I love that Menon centres a town resident (a Black lesbian) as the leader of the protest, with Pinky supporting her efforts.

Mostly, I love that Pinky, thanks in part to her brainstorming with Samir, comes up with a reasonable alternative to destroying the butterfly habitat. Instead of just saying the condo developers must leave completely, she proposes a compromise that’ll protect the butterfly habitant while also keeping the jobs and the homes that the condo development would create. Her proposed solution is simple, elegant, and quite frankly, much more mature than I may have come up with as an adult, never mind at her age. 

I really love the subplot about Pinky and her mom, in particular how they learn to understand each other better over the course of the novel. I wish the story of the mom had been developed a bit more gradually and deeply, as I found her a really interesting character and I thought the resolution of their conflict felt abrupt.

Overall, 10 Things I Hate About Pinky is a fun, feel-good teen read, and Pinky and Samir are sweet characters who are adorable together.

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Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.