A review by yvo_about_books
Nothing But the Truth by Holly James

2.0

 Finished reading: July 28th 2023


"Did you stop by to smash yet another pillar of the patriarchy, or are you here to chat?"

I admit that I added this title mainly because it fitted one of the bonus prompts for the POPSUGAR challenge, but I did like the premise of Nothing But The Truth and its similarities to the movie Liar Liar. The lowish rating had me a tad worried, but it sounded like a fun read and I had still hopes for it. Sadly, it wasn't ment to be in the end. What I thought was going to be a quick and fun read turned out to be an absolute chore to get through. I can't deny that the premise itself has a lot of potential, and this story could have been SO much fun to read. Unfortunately, the author decided to throw a huge feminism brick at us, overshadowing everything else just to get her point across. I don't mind a bit of a feminist angle in my stories, but subtlety is the key and Nothing But The Truth is just about as subtle as a dressed up unicorn with neon lights pointing at it. Seriously, think about a feminist cliche, and you will find it shoved down your throat at some point in the plot. This book forces so many cliche situations and the main character shouting and lecturing others, that the whole point of the premise seems to be lost. I'm honestly not even sure why I kept reading this absolute train wreck of a book other that I was in a way morbidly curious to see how bad things would get... Spoiler alert: let's say I could have just DNFed instead and spared myself the torture. Especially when you take in account just how unbelievable everything that happened to Lucy was, and how in less than a day her life made that big of a turn. And then I'm not even talking about the insta-love and other cringeworthy moments... Oh yes, I'm sad to say that Nothing But The Truth and me most definitely didn't get along. 
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