The Truth About Keeping Secrets tells the story of Sydney, a teenage girl who has suddenly come to experience grief after her therapist father is killed in a car accident. Set in Ohio, this sad and honest thriller explores mental health, love and friendship all the while trying to find the truth behind such sudden death.

I have mixed feelings on this book. The first half centres around the grief and fear of death Sydney encounters after the shocking and unexpected events that cause her to be left with only her mother, giving the reader an eye into the unique coping mechanisms one can develop after such trauma. We delve into her mind and see the gruesome way in which she copes: obsessively scrolling through a website which posts surveillance footage of deadly road accidents. At times, it can be an uncomfortable read but it's nothing compared to how anyone going through this heartache would feel.

Early on in the book Sydney meets June; the golden girl and a patient of her father's who is unquestionably hiding something. This new friendship grows into fascination and an obsession on Sydney's part, with the 20 minute daily car ride they share being the only moments of joy she has. It is a repetitive cycle of the question 'does she love me back?' being thrown around that caused the struggle for me to really fight for this friendship. June was a hard character for me to warm to. When she is first introduced, we are given the impression she is liked by everyone and could do no wrong - an opinion that slowly crumbled as we began to learn about June's story. When these details did arise, it added so much to her character that I wish hadn't been confined to the last few chapters of the book and instead, sprinkled around from the beginning to make June more human.

When we get to the second half, the mystery of Sydney's father's death really comes into play. We discover more about the mysterious texts she has been receiving since the funeral and understand that everyone, even the ones you love, have dark secrets. I sped through this half of the book but was still left feeling underwhelmed with the predictable pinnacle. Various pieces of information scattered around the chapters made my theory even more strong when it came to guessing the final outcome, however I would not let this put you off reading 'The Truth About Keeping Secrets'.

Savannah Brown does a good job at ensuring the secrets of the characters only come out at significant points in the book to piece everything together, although we could have been given a little more information throughout. She has a unique way of combining beautiful descriptions with occasionally simple sentences to mirror the protagonist's age in a way even older readers can relate to. It is a slow starter and unfortunately only picks up towards the second half but I would still recommend you add it to your list of books to get through this year. 'The Truth About Keeping Secrets' is well planned and is filled with delicate paragraphs and turns of phrase that made it a pleasure to read.

The Truth About Keeping Secrets comes out March 2019. You can pre-order here.

*I received this book from Penguin Random House. It is possible this will not be the final edited edition and future editions could change my review.