About the Book

Book: I’ll Take the Lie
Author: Nancy E. Wood
Genre: Christian YA
Release Date: June 28, 2019

Does the truth really set you free?

Paige Hall doubts it, after her boyfriend Justin tells her he’s over it, leaving her with a broken heart and crushed dreams. When Justin disappears, she can’t help but try to find out what happened to him. But when the more she searches, the more problems arise, she can’t help but wonder if it would be better to just accept the lie…

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My Thoughts:

I'll Take the Lie was a compelling and cautionary tale that was a bit on the darker side of the reality of the lies we tell ourselves and those around us.

Paige Hall is having anxiety attacks which seem to stem from the breakup of her and her boyfriend, Justin, months ago. I completely understood the angst and the self-esteem issues she was having after that event and the surrounding encounters. Especially since her family seemed very unsupportive.

Then Justin goes missing. Paige wants to know where he is and what happened to him. Enlisting help from a good friend she becomes her own detective. But the secrets she uncovers are possibly more than she can bear. Especially as she uncovers just how deep her family's fractures are.

I have mixed feelings about this book and how I should rate it. Again, it was a page turner. I was invested in the story, wanting Paige to get some closure and at the same time to move on with her life. But the more I kept reading I saw that this was a train wreck coming. Not really something I like reading. But I would say again that this can be viewed as a cautionary tale and a thought provoking book especially on truth. No matter how hard, truth is better than the lie. Even if you would rather take the lie, like Paige and this reader wanted to.

I was provided a copy of this novel from the author. I was not required to post a positive review, and all views and opinions are my own.

About the Author

Nancy E Wood was born into a missionary family and lived in Hungary until she turned twenty. Her whole childhood, she loved reading and stories, writing some of her own, but never believing she actually had the talent to be an author. Speaking multiple languages, she never thought she would be good enough in any to become a wordsmith.

Her senior year of high school, she was encouraged to write short stories, one of which turned into Perfect, a novel that couldn’t stay short. After sharing it with a few people, she decided to get it published a couple years later. She went to college in Florida, where she studied English and Music. After graduating, she married and moved to California. She published her second standalone book, I’ll Take the Lie, in the summer of 2019 and is currently working on a sequel to Perfect. She also runs a blog for young women, where she writes relatable and motivational posts that point to God. She has also done some speaking in different Christian schools and youth groups, encouraging teens to pursue Christ through some of the most difficult years of their lives.

More from Nancy

What’s truth? Why is it important? Does everyone have their own kind of truth or is there only one?

Those were questions I was dealing with in my college Apologetics class while I wrote I’ll Take the Lie, and I thought that theme would fit so well into the story.

The idea came to me a long time ago. I was really into The Great Gatsby at the time and wanted to write a story from a bystander’s point of view. Originally titled What’s Wrong with Alex?, Paige, the worried sister of Alex, who drastically changed over his first semester of college, wants to find out what happened to him. But the deeper I went into the story, the more Paige’s character shone through, and she soon became the protagonist with her ex boyfriend’s mysterious disappearance. The whole theme tied into what I was studying about apologetics and truth, so the messy pieces all came together into a solid plot.

Paige isn’t a believer, and she doesn’t really care about the idea of truth and spirituality until she gets dragged into it. It’s my hope that this book story helps young adults like me think deeper and question their beliefs. We get so caught up with our own happiness, we don’t always want to accept the hard truth. But, like Paige, we need to think about whether we can keep living pretend lives or if the truth really does set us free.