Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley (Harlequin Teen, 30 September 2014)
Robin Talley mentions in her author’s note at the end that this book was “painful to write”. And so it must have been–it was painful to read, too, but in a good way. In an important way.
It is February 1959 in Virginia, and Jefferson High School is being desegregated. Sarah Dunbar, a black girl in her senior year, starts to attend Jefferson, along with nine other students from her black-only school. They’re greeted with shouts and spitballs and worse. But Sarah meets a white girl called Linda Hairston, and though Linda opposes integration like the rest, Sarah recognises something in her that seems different, something that seems like potential for change. As they’re forced to work together on a school project, they start to get to know each other and realise that maybe some of the things they’ve believed all their lives aren’t so true after all.
Afterwritten 