The Truth About Everything

Gr 8 Up–Fifteen-year-old Lark knows very little about life. Starving, isolated, barely homeschooled, and taught to be fearful of the government by her conspiracy theorist father, it isn’t until she gets her first period and believes she is miscarrying, like her mother has many times, that she begins to question what she knows about the world. Her only friend, a Native American neighbor named Alex, helps her sneak into school and begins teaching her how things are in the real world. Alex helps her realize that not all her father’s ideas are as innocuous as they seem. When her parents discover what she has done, Lark must decide if she wants to be the person her parents are raising her to be, or if she wants to continue on her path toward new knowledge. Farr excellently portrays Lark’s emotional struggles in a genuine way. Readers will be rooting for Lark to question her upbringing while being empathetic to her conflicting emotions about what she has been raised to believe. A romance between Lark and Alex is also introduced but not the primary part of the story. Some minor secondary characters also help Lark build confidence to forge her own path.