The Truth According to Ember

It's rarely a positive sign when you get a good way into a book and are startled to find out that the lead character is 25 years old and not, as you'd assumed, 18 or 19. The main character, Ember, is a pathological liar, a terrible communicator, and has poor judgement. Even if you don't actually have the degree in accounting you claim you have, how can you not realise that you're abetting an embezzler? Girl, that's a fucking felony. The more she lied, the more my shoulders went up around my ears anticipating the fallout—and then when all the truths come out, well, she's got main character armour and faces no real consequences for what she's pulled.

(This is not me saying that I needed her to be punished, but that in the real world, show more doing X will tend to have people react Y, and that doesn't happen here. Either give me a book that's totally fluffily divorced from reality or give me a book where there's realistic fallout of events, but don't try to shoehorn the two into one.)

I absolutely do not believe that one or two years down the line, Ember and Danuwoa will still be together.

Then add to this some clunky prose, dialogue that's often stilted and melodramatic, some truly cringey sex scenes (Ember assures us that when Danuwoa puts his "his river-rock smooth fullness" into her "slick slit", "I was a Slip 'n Slide down there."), and an ending that features an extended family of Native people celebrating the "wholesome holiday" of.... Thanksgiving? Is this sarcasm on an unprecedented level?

I really wanted to like this! A book about a part of the world I've never been to, a book which centres a romance between two Native people! But this all felt juvenile and overcooked, and there's no sign of a supportive editorial hand here either. show less

Thanks Berkley for the gifted copy.

One white lie to land her dream job turns into many more as Ember, a Chickasaw woman, tries to catch a break. With a growing mountain of lies and threat of blackmail, Ember must choose between telling the truth or losing everything.

I loved THE TRUTH ACCORDING TO EMBER. This is the first traditionally published Native romance by a Native author. Though the premise sounded like a fun workplace romcom, it turned out to be much deeper of a read, providing great social critique with lots of representation of Native culture. Lighthearted moments balanced the heavy themes. Despite her constant lying, I enjoyed Ember as a character and liked seeing how she grew throughout the story. The other characters were show more great as well, with additional Native and queer representation. Each character felt genuine and unique. The writing had its clunky moments, though the style did well in capturing Ember’s emotions, actions, and state-of-being. It gave a sense of tension and anxiety as the reader became caught up in all the lies along with her. There were some spots of weird pacing and romance tropes that were super-tropey (I don’t have a good explanation – sometimes stuff just doesn’t jive perfectly for me) but overall, I didn’t want to put this book down. I was surprised by the depth of thought-provoking topics. Quite a range of material was covered, but it all worked out. As a debut, this was excellent. I’m looking forward to seeing how Nava’s writing develops. I can’t wait to read her next book! If you don’t normally read romance but you do prioritize reading Native voices, consider checking out THE TRUTH ACCORDING TO EMBER. show less

Ember Lee Cardinal is determined to make her way in the world. She has an entry-level accounting certificate from the local community cottage that should be enough to get her a starting accountant job, but all of her applications keep getting rejected and she's not sure how much longer she can stand working at her dead-end bowling alley job. So she decides to slightly fudge the truth... and adjusts her resume to list a full accounting degree and some accounting experience. When she applies to the job, she makes sure to skip checking the "Native American" box. Sure enough, her plan works, and she quickly secures a job with a tech startup. At her new job, things are great, but Ember can't seem to stop telling lies, even to the handsome show more Native guy in IT, Danuwoa. As her falsehoods start to spiral and she and Danuwoa get closer, Ember may be caught in a trap of her own making.

I preordered this when I saw it was the first traditionally published romcom from a Native American author. This debut romance novel had its issues, but I enjoyed it overall. Lying is never my favorite conflict mechanism in romance novels and I got a little frustrated with Ember, but overall I think it showed promise and I would try another book from Nava in the future. show less

Started out entertained and interested in this one, but it lost me along the way.

I was fine with Ember’s first two lies, checking Caucasian on a job application when she’s half-indigenous and claiming a degree she doesn’t have, at least there was motivation for those, she needed a higher paying job to return to college and finish her degree. But the lies just kept coming after that, for no reason, it became frustrating, she even lied about a cat allergy. The lies were so frequent and so unnecessary to the plot, and Ember seemed to have so little guilt over her often disingenuous interactions that for me over time it undermined her character.

As for the romance, they had chemistry, but her pointless lies got in the way there, too, show more it felt like she was hardly ever real with him, and I also wasn’t a fan of how Danuwoa reacts to her lies. For so much of the story, whenever it seemed like he was on to her about a lie, he’d chuckle or smirk, but never calls her out, asks her why or engages her in a deeper conversation about why she’s lying at every turn, so in that aspect of the story Danuwoa came across as maddeningly passive for the longest time, until of course, the story needed a change for the third act.

One of the things I most liked when the book began is that we had a heroine who is in a dicey position financially, and the hero while fairing better than her, isn’t a billionaire either. I like seeing more down to earth circumstances in the romance genre, for me, it’s closer to the life I know and it gives things a more realistic feel.

But when you have two characters reliant on their paychecks, it’s that much harder to buy that they’d flagrantly take chances with their company’s no dating policy rather than be more resistant with each other or discreet. Danuwoa particularly irritated me in that, at least at times (only at times) Ember seemed concerned about his job, he sure didn’t seem to care about hers though, which didn’t feel all that hero worthy to me.

There were also a few too many things that had a contrived feeling, involving the job she’s under-qualified for, the car, the business trip, and more.

This had potential, had it leaned a little more into the sibling dynamics and the community Ember grew up in, let things unfold a little more organically, and dialed the lies down to just the ones that would propel the story forward, this would undoubtedly have rated higher for me since I did enjoy the author’s voice, there was a great conversational flow to the writing. show less

Is the prefect guy really perfect if your workplace forbids interoffice dating and he, your coworker, continues to come on to you even though you've told him not to—however reluctantly? This question isn't even asked in this book. All the imperfections, according to Ember, are Ember's. And yes, Ember screws up, but boy does she have help in one area. And the love scenes don't quite get to Z level but are best skipped except for laughs at the clichéd triteness of them.

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

“I’m pretty sure this is a bad idea.”

The Truth According Ember was a story of what can happen when all those little white lies you told start to add up. Ember is twenty-five years old living paycheck to paycheck after her younger brother skipped out on bail and she lost the money she had saved to continue her college classes. After not even receiving a call for an interview after the umpteenth job application, she and her bestfriend Joanna come up with the idea to check the Caucasian box instead of the Native American one and fudge her credentials a tad bit. Lo and behold, she gets called in for an interview, lands the job and show more even finds herself soon promoted. However, the lies are starting to snowball and that little interoffice HR rule about not allowing romances, seems more like a suggestion when Ember and the IT guy Danuwoa have chemistry impossible to ignore.

I was just Ember Lee Cardinal, a sometimes liar, but mostly an overall good person.

This was all told from Ember's pov and in a way that readers are on her running thoughts ride, this isn't typically my personal favorite writing style. I started to feel it lead to overly describing on focuses I didn't care about anymore and thought paced in a way I started to find exhausting, if this style doesn't bother you, though, your mileage will vary greatly from mine. I also thought this had more of a New Adult chik-lit feel but for Ember being twenty-five, all of her pop culture references felt pretty dated (yes, I know about those quirky youngin's that love older movies (Say Anything) but all the references were like this). For the most part, Ember is a character you're going to root for, even when some of her white lies will start to have you stressed out and yelling for her to stop. Starting from a place unprivileged, she tries to out play a system that wants to keep her locked out of it. There's definitely confronting racism, sexism, and nepotism moments in this.

Being caught kissing him in front of the CEO’s nephew was the absolute worst thing that could ever happen.

Danuwoa comes into the picture pretty early, they have one of those relationships where Ember's always somehow embarrassing herself in front of him and telling him obvious lies to make herself look better (she's borrowing the car, not the owner of a 1996 holding on by a thread Toyota). Even though we don't get his pov, it's easy to read that he likes her and, mostly, finds her obvious lies amusing. However, I found the romance fairly weak, this is more Ember's new adult, coming into my own, slice of life story. For the vast majority of the story, Danuwoa is a paper doll, it's not until around 70% that we get a deeper look at his character and background, he has a younger sister he cares for because his parents died. He's the acts perfect, looks perfect interest for the heroine that I, personally, didn't find had much substance to his character make-up. They go on a work trip where suddenly, there's only one bed!, and we get a feeling required hot bedroom scene and from there you'll get all the buzz and bullet point words and phrases that stands in for emotional depth romance.

This all started because I just wanted to be an accountant, damn it.

The latter half is about Ember talking about how important this job is to her and thinking about how that HR rule about not dating could ruin things but inviting Danuwoa up to her floor for a hot quickie because her boss is supposed to be gone an hour, it just didn't fit right and felt ignore previous character building in favor of hot scene, so I guess, again mileage may vary. Danuwoa also proclaims once how important the job is to him but he's more of the “doesn't want to be a dirty secret” and wants to just come clean to HR. It, of course, all blows up in Ember's face, the romance and job lies, and we get Ember learning some life lessons and what she really wants out of life.

There's some family life issues going on for Ember, relationship with her brother, father, and community that I enjoyed, I found myself wishing this just would have been made a contemporary fiction coming of age and left out trying to add enough romance to get a romance tag. The relationship between Ember and who became a bit of a work mentor, Natalie, was one of my favorite relationships in the book, that friendship would have been great to see grow. Also, Ember learning to ask for help from her community and getting a talking to from her Auntie felt like it could have been a great heart of the story.

The writing style of riding Ember's thoughts, created a pace I started to find exhausting and along with a romance I didn't find myself invested in, had this not hitting the right mark for me but I also think there was some great coming of age and cultural issues threaded into here that definitely hit right. show less

Ember Cardinal needs money. Her brother, Sage, is in trouble, and she has been sending him money. She can't get a job when she submits her resumes stating that she is Native American. Her friend suggests that she submit a resume as a white person. She pads her resume with lies, saying she has her degree as an accountant, and she does land a job.
Meanwhile, she meets a fellow Native American, Danuwoa Colson, who is the IT guy at the accounting firm. They become attracted to each other, but the firm has a no dating associates policy. As the story continues, Ember's lies continue, which threatens her job and her relationship.
Cute romance while highlighting the prejudice in hiring.