This Story Is a Lie

June 11, 2018
No one is as they seem in Pollock’s YA debut. Peter, 17, uses his savantlike math abilities to parse his daily experiences and cope with his severe anxiety. After his mother, a scientist, is nearly killed and his twin sister, Bel, goes missing, Peter is kidnapped by his mother’s colleagues (or maybe her would-be assassins), and math becomes Peter’s lens for deciding whom he can trust. This shape-shifter of a novel explores the tragic cost of family secrets and lies. Its use of math is fresh and fascinating, but Pollock mashes Peter’s mental health issues into a spy/serial-killer/action/revenge/family story, which morphs among genres and doubles back to cover Peter’s personal backstory of being bullied and his close relationship with Bel. Though flashbacks provide insight into Peter’s past, they sap momentum—and because characters are constantly lying and changing allegiances, it’s challenging to keep everyone (and everything) straight. The story offers a fascinating premise, but the unending action and disjointed narration result in a bumpy reading experience. Ages 14–up.

June 15, 2018
Pollock (Life Inside My Mind: 31 Authors Share Their Personal Struggles, 2018, etc.) takes the unreliable narrator to the extreme as an anxiety-ridden teen tries to elude deadly spies in this British import.While Pete's panic attacks are unpredictable, he finds the predictable patterns of mathematics soothing. And while he's often the object of bullying in their London school, his adventurous, rebellious twin sister, Bel, serves as his protector. The white teen's also found camaraderie with Ingrid, an obsessive-compulsive classmate who is a fellow math genius. After a difficult panic attack, Pete reluctantly agrees to attend an award ceremony for his single mother, a notable scientist. Instead of accolades, however, his mother receives a potentially fatal stab wound. As they are whisked away by a dubious team of rescuers, Pete learns that this team really consists of spies known as 57 (even more covert than MI6) and that his mother's scientific research is part of their operation. He also learns that Bel has gone missing. These shocking revelations are just the start of unrelenting twists and turns that continue as Pete relies on various math theories and Ingrid's help to escape and hunt for Bel before 57 takes all of their lives. Chapters that alternate between past and present eventually merge together to provide more clues. Or do they?Even the last page will keep readers wondering if there's truth to the title. (Thriller. 14-18)

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Starred review from August 1, 2018
Grades 10-1 *Starred Review* Seventeen-year-old Peter Blankman suffers from particularly horrible panic attacks, evidenced in the opening scene as he tries to eat a porcelain saltshaker. Peter is most vitally alive in the world of mathematics, only comfortable in the presence of his mother and his twin sister, Bel. He is terrified of the day's planned appearance at an event to honor his mother, an esteemed scientist. Nevertheless, he accompanies his mother and Bel to the very public award ceremony, where a panic attack forces him to flee. From behind him, Peter hears his mother call for help, and, doubling back, discovers her in a pool of blood, stabbed. After this, things get really strange. Colleagues of his mother whisk them off, revealing in the process that they, and Peter's mother, are actually spies. This revelation is merely the first twist in this sophisticated, dark novel, where reality is but a variable in Peter's complicated life. His narration, original and disconcerting, continuously returns to the solace of numbers. Even this seemingly constant science, however, proves vexing as Peter strives to explain his own psychological condition in terms of a mathematical equation. Peter is the quintessential unreliable narrator, shifting between past and present, recalculating the truth as new events collide with memories. Readers who thrill to the combination of mathematics and psychological suspense will be utterly enthralled.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2019
Thriller fans will devour this complex mystery narrated by seventeen-year-old Peter Blackman, a mathematical genius who suffers from panic disorder. The central crime is exciting but difficult to navigate, particularly as the narration jumps between past and present. Pete's mental illness is uniquely compelling: his unreliable brain holds both the questions and answers for everyone at stake. Those who hang on are in for quite a ride.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from June 1, 2018

Gr 9 Up-Seventeen-year-old Peter Blankman is a math prodigy. Math permeates everything in his life, including helping him deal with his almost-daily panic attacks. Peter survives largely with the support of his brilliant scientist mother; his twin sister, Bel; and his best friend Ingrid. When Peter watches an assassination attempt on his mother and her subsequent kidnapping, and then Bel disappears, a colossal panic attack strikes him down. He is swept up into a shady government conspiracy that revolves around his mom and Bel (and, bizarrely, Ingrid). None of them are anywhere near the people Peter thinks them to be. Whirlwind adventures across the country change Peter's perceptions of his family, his past, and who he actually is. Gripping, dazzling, and pulse-pounding, Pollock's YA debut is a thrill from the first page to the last. Peter is supremely amiable; a kid who just wants to be liked and understood and "normal" is painfully hiding behind all of the advanced math and nervousness and panic episodes. Credit should go to Pollock for making all of the hyper-advanced math reader-friendly as well. The final twist is well disguised and truly revelatory. An abrupt, ambiguous conclusion will frustrate some, intrigue others, and have many teens fiercely debating what really happened VERDICT A fast-paced STEM thriller, and a worthy choice for YA shelves.-Tyler Hixson, Brooklyn Public Library

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