Review Detail

3.8 9

What I Saw and How I Lied

Young Adult Fiction 1200

An Amazingly Vivid Picture of an Era

February 27, 2010 (Updated: June 11, 2026)

Overall rating

5.0

Plot

5.0

Characters

N/A

Writing Style

N/A

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

N/A

Reader reviewed by Super Reader Girl

Judy
Blundell is an extremely talented author. She paints an amazingly vivid
picture of an era - the styles, the people, the setting, the feel - and
makes you fell almost as if you lived it. I wondered at first if maybe
she had. She did her research well.

The story consists of the painfully honest and startlingly clear
recollections of a 15-year-old girl's experiences during one season of
her life. It tells of how greed, want, love, and especially war can
influence people to do things they normally would not.

The first chapter takes place near the end of the narrator's story,
giving us a foreshadowing of unpleasant things to come. Then she delves
into what has happened to her up to this point, beginning shortly after
the end of World War II. We see what she saw and experienced from her
then mostly naive point of view, only with our own new shared knowledge
that something is not right. We can see what she missed the first time
around only too clearly. We keep wanting for it not to be true and find
ourselves almost wishing for the naivete with which Evie originally
experienced the story.

I thought the story was very well written. It was definitely a
"page-turner" and I finished it in one sitting, staying up until almost
2am. :) I, however, do not know that I would recommend it to most of my
friends. It contains some sex, as well as murder and a lot of deceit,
so it cannot be categorized a "clean read". I did like the picture
painted of the era and the way the main character tried to bring
something good away from something truly bad.

(Super Reader Girl Reviews: http://superreadergirlreviews.blogspot.com/)

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