The Kindest Lie

Genre: Contemporary / Historical Fiction

Book Type: Audio

Author: Nancy Johnson

Narrator: Shayna Small

Pages / Length: 336 pages / 11 hours and 5 minutes

Publisher: William Morrow / Harper Audio

Book Description:

Every family has its secrets...

It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past.

Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. As she begins digging into the past, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. Just as Ruth is about to uncover a burning secret her family desperately wants to keep hidden, a heart-stopping incident strains the town’s already searing racial tensions, sending Ruth and Midnight on a collision course that could upend both their lives.

Powerful and unforgettable, The Kindest Lie is the story of an American family and reveals the secrets we keep and the promises we make to protect one another.

Thoughts: This book was profoundly moving and incredibly eye-opening to read. I love when a book can take situations I will never be in, and give me another viewpoint and to see things through a different lens.

I cannot say enough good things about this book. It is so beautifully written, while simultaneously heartbreaking. When a book can open your heart and eyes to situations that can be considered a "hot topic" and not feel forced, it resonates even deeper with me.

I loved the strength in Ruth's character and the multiple sacrifices she made throughout her life to try to have a better one, for both herself and her child. This book is a must read!

Favorite Quotes:

🔹 A lie could be kind to you if you wanted it to be, if you let it. With every year that passed, it became easier to put more distance between her old life and her new one. (page 1)

🔹 [Xavier] "She got pregnant her sophomore year in high school and dropped out. She still talks about getting her GED. The same thing could have happened to me. I messed around with my share of girls in high school and didn't always strap up."

"But it's different for guys," she said. "People don't shame you for it. You still get to walk away and have a future." (page 29)

🔹 It hurt until it didn't anymore. Sex was like salve on old wounds. When he entered her, he filled the aching, empty places left by a dead grandfather and parents she never knew. They didn't talk about protection because he was her protection. (page 33)

🔹 For her, love had always been about holding on too tight. She could never get the grip just right. (page 36)

🔹 [...] but Ruth always wondered what scars lingered inside her brother, invisible ones he never talked about. (page 147)

🔹 Corey had traveled through Ruth, but he wasn't hers. The certainty of that realization stunned her, and instead of bringing her peace, it made her ache for what she didn't have, for what should have been hers all these years. (page 293)

🔹 Verna continued: "My biggest worry has been that he'll grow into one of those Black men that white people fear and then kill because of that fear." What she left unspoken was that his small, young body triggered that same fear.

"I'm sure you told him not to argure with the police." Ruth's thoughts returned to the morning at the river and to the bucket boy in Chicago. She thought of Eli getting stopped for carrying weed. Even Xavier wore suits sometimes on casual Fridays to avoid getting hassled. A wave of nausea passed over her as she began to comprehend the constant worry the Cunninghams had trying to keep Corey safe.

Verna looked up toward the ceiling and exhaled. "Always be polite. Don't talk back. Keep your hands -"

Ruth finished her script. "Out of your pockets. Make sure they're visible. Stay alive." (page 305)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️