#16thingsithoughtweretrue by Janet Gurtler: Review

Title: #16thingsithoughtweretrue
Author: Janet Gurtler
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Buy This Book: Book Depository / Amazon

Heart attacks happen to other people #thingsIthoughtweretrue
When Morgan's mom gets sick, it's hard not to panic. Without her mother, she would have no one—until she finds out the dad who walked out on her as a baby isn't as far away as she thought...
Adam is a stuck-up, uptight jerk #thingsIthoughtweretrue
Now that they have a summer job together, Morgan's getting to know the real Adam, and he's actually pretty sweet...in a nerdy-hot kind of way. He even offers to go with her to find her dad. Road trip, anyone?
5000 Twitter followers are all the friends I need #thingsIthoughtweretrue
With Adam in the back seat, a hyper chatterbox named Amy behind the wheel, and plenty of Cheetos to fuel their trip, Morgan feels ready for anything. She's not expecting a flat tire, a missed ferry, a fake girlfriend...and that these two people she barely knew before the summer started will become the people she can't imagine living without.

Every once in a while you find a book that takes you completely by surprise. A book that is so much more than you expected and makes you embarrassed that you judged it so quickly. For me #16thingsithoughtweretrue is one of those books. I had assumed it was going to be a sweet but quick and easy read without much substance but I was so wrong. This book surprised me so much because it was sweet and it was quick but it was so much more than that.

Morgan spends most of her time attached to her phone, posting tweets and talking to her friends online. Ever since her best friend posted a video of her dancing in guys underwear online Morgan has kept to herself. She hears people as they whisper about her and sees the looks they give her and so she hides. It's not until her mum gets sick that Morgan even begins to let people back into her life. Morgan has never known who her father is, only that he never wanted to be a father and left before she was born. But, fearing she may die, Morgan's mother reveals her fathers name and Morgan decides that she wants to track him down. Along for the ride are her boss Adam and another a girl from work, Amy. A girl who is so talkative and bubbly that Morgan can't figure out if she's cute or infuriating. This is a road trip story and along the way Morgan will learn more about herself in that one journey than she probably has in her entire life.

I really enjoyed this book, I felt like it was a lot of fun. Morgan is a character that I could sympathise with, it must be hard to go your whole life wanting something so bad that you can't have. Seeing other people with their own fathers and knowing it's something you won't ever experience. I felt bad for her and I was just as anxious as she was when it came to tracking down her father. Adam was a really sweet character and I loved how his and Morgan's feelings developed over time. I thought that romance was especially sweet to read about.

Amy just about stole the show when it came to this book. She was just so damn likeable! She's talkative and bubbly and she has absolutely no filter -kind of like me- and I admired that about her. She was never embarrassed to say what she felt or to just blurt out the first thought that popped into her head - she reminded me so much of Jennifer Lawrence in that sense. She was exactly the kind of friend Morgan needed and for me she was just the perfect character. She just sort of inserts herself into Morgan's life, determined that they will be friends and it was fun to see someone pushing Morgan out of her comfort zone. Sign me up any day to go on a road trip with Amy, she's clearly the best road trip buddy ever.

The journey to find her father doesn't take up the whole book, we get to see how they cope once they find each other. I liked how that was handled in the book and it felt very realistic to me. It wasn't all sunshine and flowers and hugs, it was hard to come to terms with everything that had gone on before. They couldn't just pick up as if they were daughter and father, it was something that they would need to work at if they really wanted to get to know one another.


I was completely thrown off and shocked at about 85% of the way through this book. It had actually been quite plain sailing till then and I was actually smiling at this wonderful read. But then it just gut punched me in the feels and my god it hurt. I was just not expecting it and I was on public transport at the time; my eyes welled up and I looked absolutely psycho. I just wasn't expecting this to be the kind of book that would do that to me. I thought we had an understanding, me and the book, it would be the nice light-hearted read I needed and I would write a lovely review as thanks. But nope, it betrayed me!

4/5 Stars

This was a really enjoyable read and so much more than I was expecting. I laughed at the book and I cried too. It blind-sided me at one point and left me totally devastated but I loved it none the less. It was a great read and I loved watching the characters develop. I will definitely be hunting down more of the authors work after this. 

*I received a copy of this novel from the author/publisher/publicist via Edelweiss in exchange for a free and honest review and received no monetary compensation for this review.