Nothing But the Truth (And a Few White Lies)

Headley makes an impressive debut with this witty, intimate novel about a self-described "bizarrely tall Freakinstein cobbled together from Asian and white DNA," trying to find her niche. Patty Ho, the 14-year-old narrator feels conspicuously out of place whether she is socializing with her white classmates or among her mother's Taiwanese friends. Headley immediately conveys her heroine's sense of humor when she opens with a "Belly-Button Grandmother" who tells Patty's future by probing her belly. When the woman predicts that Patty will marry a white man, Patty's distraught, divorced mother—who would like nothing more than for her daughter to meet a nice Taiwanese boy—sends Patty to math camp at Stanford University. Despite some misgivings, Patty there finds adventure, romance and a level of freedom and acceptance that she has never experienced before. Guided by her outspoken Asian roommate, a compassionate counselor and an open-minded aunt who lives near the campus, Patty begins to view herself in a new light—not as an oddball, but rather as someone who has inherited the best of two different worlds. Through lively, first-person narrative punctuated with creative word play, the author encapsulates Patty's ups and downs and traces her heroine's emotional maturation during the course of an eventful summer. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)