This Much Is True by Katherine Owen

About the book

This Much Is True is a new adult book by Katherine Owen. The book was published as a Kindle e-book by The Writing Works Group on 11^th August and it is 432 pages long.

Plot Synopsis

Tally Landon is 17 and desperate to graduate and leave for New York to pursue her ballet dreams. But, her twin sister’s death changes her whole outlook on life and Tally finds it hard to get on with her life. Her best friend Marla convinces her to go to one last party before leaving, a college party, somewhere where no one will know about what happened. When Tally meets Lincoln Presley, the town’s famous baseball player, she sees an opportunity to reinvent herself and lie about who she is. For one night, Tally is able to escape the nightmare of her own life.

What Tally doesn’t realise though is that Lincoln has already met Tally before; he saved her the night her sister died. He’s only ever had baseball on his mind and is set to make it big but he can’t get Tally out of his head. He doesn’t think that getting to know her could do any hard but he couldn’t have been more wrong.

What I thought

I’m always up for trying out a new author, especially those who write new adult books. There aren’t too many well-known authors in this genre so many books that I read at the minute are from authors I have never heard of. However, some of these authors turn out to be fabulous while others just don’t quite hit the mark.

This Much Is True starts off with a pretty explosive bang. Tally and her twin sister are in a terrible car accident and while Tally manages to survive, her sister does not. This is what accelerates Tally’s destructive lifestyle. She no longer knows about to live without her best friend and quickly becomes a shadow version of her former self. At a college party, she meets 22 year old Lincoln Presley who has a very promising baseball career ahead of him. The two instantly have a strong connection and great sexual chemistry, even if Tally does lie to him about who she is and how old she really is.

The beginning of the book was really promising. Katherine Owen puts together two very different characters from varying backgrounds and for a while, they were great to read about. I enjoyed watching their relationship grow quickly and the banter between the two was fun. However, this is one of those stories where love happens far too quickly and it became unbelievable. After a very short period of time, Lincoln wants Tally to stay away from other guys while they go their separate ways but I felt like he didn’t have the right to ask this of her at all.

This is an extremely long book and it took me much longer than normal to get through it. There were quite a few times that I really wanted to stop reading but I carried on in the hopes that it would get better. Owen adds far too much into the plot and draws out everything for as long as possible. For two people who don’t know each other too well, Tally and Lincoln go through a hell of a lot over the course of this book and I just felt like it was far too much and a lot of us was just so unbelievable and silly.

One thing I had a massive problem with in this book was Tally’s lifestyle. Tally studies ballet and goes off to New York for a life with better chances as making it as a dancer. Now, being a dancer I have no problem with at all, that would be stupid, but it was the way in which Tally behaved. She quite openly has an eating disorder and it is brushed aside like it is not a big deal. Considering the target audience of this book, I don’t think it is a very good message to be spreading, especially as it wasn’t dealt with in a responsible way.

This Much Is True is a book that I just could not get on with. While it did have promising aspects, it was drawn out and the plot just didn’t make sense at times.