The Truth Commison by Susan Juby

Book Blurb (from goodreads)
This was going to be the year Normandy Pale came into her own. The year she emerged from her older sister’s shadow—and Kiera, who became a best-selling graphic novelist before she even graduated from high school, casts a long one. But it hasn’t worked out that way, not quite. So Normandy turns to her art and writing, and the “truth commission” she and her friends have started to find out the secrets at their school. It’s a great idea, as far as it goes—until it leads straight back to Kiera, who has been hiding some pretty serious truths of her own.

Susan Juby’s The Truth Commission: A story about easy truths, hard truths, and those things best left unsaid.







My Review:
I must admit something embarrassing, until I finished the book, I didn't realize that it wasn't actually non fiction. I never seemed to put two and two together that the authors name didn't match with the main characters name.... So with that in consideration lets start with the review.
The plot of this book was interesting at best. It followed a girl called Normanday (but she preferred to be called Norm). Norm and her friends (Who attend an art school in Canada) decide that they want to start to be able to get behind peoples facades and get straight to the truth. They begin to ask the obvious people the obvious question, ask the school drug addict why he is on drugs, ask the girl who organizes the slut walks why she does it, ask the grumpy teacher why they are so grumpy and so on. After each truth something exciting or strange happens to the person in the completely normal sense of the world. Suddenly there are people that you would never expect to see in a sundress walking around the school in one, and people protesting in the school in their underwear. These were humorous events in the book but are no where close to what the book is really about. Norm has a famous sister who writes comics based of over exaggerated versions of their family's life, making Norm look like an ungraceful/incompetent fish and their mum and dad like complete messes (and not in any way good). This arises conflict in the household, especially when Norm's sister becomes even more strange and secretive than usual.
Norms character was an interesting one to read about, especially the foot notes which the author added into the book, or Norm added into the book, it's kind of hard to talk about. These footnotes added a lot of character and depth to the book. I also found Norm especially easy to identify with, mainly because she was so normal. There wasn't anything particularly special about her, all she wanted to do was get through school and stay friends with her friends.
All together I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.