While I loved Fitzpatrick's first novel, My Life Next Door, I must say that the follow up novel was a bit disappointing. Not necessarily the worst, but definitely not good.
What I Thought Was True is set on an island town, off the coast of some big city. The protagonist is a girl named Gwen. She comes from a family of what she calls "town keepers", or people who maintain the town for the rich people that stay in the rental ocean-side mansions every summer. As Gwen is committed to her family, she is unable to leave her responsibility to her family on the island, and is also unable to avoid her biggest mistake: the rich, good looking Cassidy Sommers, who got the job as a yard boy for the entire summer (This means they'll have plenty of run-ins). While the book does talk about Gwen's family issues, as any good YA novel does, the story is mainly focused on the past Cassidy and Gwen share, and, later, their pursuit for a relationship. The plot of the book isn't the worst, and I do admit that reading the synopsis on the inside of the cover (or the blurb) intrigued me. However, once you start reading the book, you'll know why I only gave it three stars.
The writing in this book is just not that good. I'm sorry, Huntley, I love you, but I did not like the writing. Some of the characters were very unbearable (mainly Gwen... she could just NEVER decide what she wanted!), and Huntley's need to describe every single thing took away from the story. Had her descriptions been some form of symbolism, I would have probably not disliked them so. However, they are (for the most part) pointless ramblings.
And so, I give this book 3 stars. I loved the romance (I'm a hopeless romantic), and the plot was all right, but the writing and the characters definitely prevented the book from being the best it could have been.
(Also, sorry if I come off as snooty, I just am very critical about books... I even have a blog where I write reviews on books.)
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