Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Val

Nothing But the Truth was hysterical and so truthful at times it stung. Patty Ho the main character spares no details in giving the reader the background of her life. From, living with her jaded first generation Taiwanese mother who insists that her demise came after she disregarded her familys wishes, ran away with a white man who she had two children with and then left. She insists that Patty excel in school and succeed in everything so that one day she can go to a good college and marry a Good One. Whats a Good One? In Pattys mother terms its a Taiwanese doctor, stressing the Taiwanese part. Between her eccentric strict mother and dealing with her HAPA self, (Hawaiian term for someone who is half white half Asian) which she cant see as anything other than weird and uncomfortable, she struggles to come to terms with her biracial self. It is later on when she is forced to go to a math camp at Stanford that she discovers that being biracial isnt about deciding or choosing one side. Its like her math camp roommate Jasmine said, shes lucky because she gets to have the best of both worlds. Patty gives us the truth about Stu, a cute guy at Math Camp, Jasmine, her roommate at Stanford, Her Aunt Lu, Her mother all the while letting us into her world and self. This book was absolutely amazing, a rare find that is completely relatable to. Everyone has felt at one time or another that cant fit in their skin or that their parents are way strict because it was how they were raised. Everyone has heard the lecture seminars before, the ones that go: something along the lines of Your so lucky because& Or how about the ever popular Im so disappointed in you& What makes this book different is that someone is actually writing about it, no sugar coated writing Patty tells it like it is 99.1 percent hence the whole and a few white lies but that why we love her!