Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies)

"While ever other freshman is at the Spring Fling tonight, I have a date with an old lady whose thumb is feeling up my belly button."

That is because Patty Ho's mother has taken her to a Belly-Button Grandmother, a woman who can read the future by feeling the belly-button. When the lady predicts that Patty (who is half-Asian, half-white) will start dating a white boy, her mother decides it's time to send her to math camp. Patty braces herself for the worst time of her life, but what really happens is more than she bargained for.

I really enjoyed Patty's voice. Her relationship with her mother is very believable and relatable. I liked Patty as a character, and it was fun to see her develop over the course of a summer. I recommend it highly.

Wow, this was a fast read. A good one, but I honestly wasn’t expecting to be done that quickly. (And I’m normally a quick reader to begin with.)

I did have fun reading this, and it’s a very light read compared to Girl Overboard. Patty’s self-identity crisis is far different from Syrah’s, and I like that this really touches more on cultural identity. Patty’s not only described as being physically awkward, but also emotionally awkward. It makes her feel a little more grounded. I liked that she has trouble relating to her friends and the other kids at her school, and a large part of that is because she’s half-Asian. I liked her budding friendships with Anne and Jasmine, especially since the focus is on more their support for show more each other. I also really liked how Patty began to open up to her mother, after finding out the truth about her father.

That said, a lot of the book feels underdeveloped. After the revelation about Patty’s father, the rest of the plot clips by at an extremely fast pace. There’s several other plot developments, but they’re only touched on and never given full details. I wanted to know more about why Patty likes making up new words, I wanted more of her relationship with her Aunt Lu, I wanted to see her adjust more to math camp—there’s a lot that really doesn’t get developed. The book feels like it’s the first half of another book, aside from the last chapter. It really could have been a lot longer, and it feels like there’s a lot more to the story here.

It’s not a bad book, as I did enjoy reading it. It just feels like that it’s not as fleshed out. show less

Half-white, half-Asian Patty Ho has never felt complete. Her white friends always joke about her crazy Taiwanese mother's ways, and Patty shuns the company of the goodie-goodie Anne Wong, the only other Asian girl at her school. But worst of all in Patty's life is her mother, who's a five-foot-tall, traditional, wary, embarrassing Mom-inator, complete with foreign accent. Mom's worst regret is her marriage with the father of Patty and her older brother Abe (oh, did we mention that beloved Abe is going to Harvard?). He disappeared mysteriously when Patty was 2, and no one ever talks about him.

When a bellybutton fortune reading reveals that Patty will marry a white man, her mother freaks out and ships her off to math camp at Stanford show more along with Anne. But Palo Alto, California is a lot different than Washington State. There a millions of Asian guys (which ought to make Patty's mom happy, as she wants her daughter to marry a rich Taiwanese man). There's Stu, for example, who's hot, Chinese, AND thinks hapas are cute. And Patty is slowly beginning to learn to love being "the best of both worlds."

Of course, there's still her crazy worrywart mother to ruin her summer... but what turns out to be heartbreak and humiliation may reveal clues about her mother's past that Patty never knew.

Justina Chen Headley takes readers through every aspect of Patty's emotional understanding of herself. With plenty of self-deprecating humor and Asian references, this book accurately depicts the confusing life of a hapa, and how she learns to love herself for who she is... no lies. show less

Reviewed by Me for TeensReadToo.com

If Patricia "Patty" Yi-Phen Ho had just one wish, she knows exactly what it would be. To be white. Full-out, red-white-and-blue, all-American, totally Caucasian white. Not the half-and-half mixture that she is now, with an overbearing Taiwanese mother and a long-gone Caucasian father. Not an Amazon-tall mishmash of ancestries that leave her looking like an overgrown Asian teenager or a really tanned white one. Just plain old, blend-into-the-crowd white.

When her mom drags her to a fortune-teller who gets her information from your bellybutton rather than a crystal ball, Patty knows she's in trouble. The "you're going to have three children" prediction is a little ludicrous, given the fact she can't even show more get a boyfriend. But what really freaks her out--not to mention sends her mother into a fit of unintelligible Taiwanese--is the fact that, according to bellybutton lady, Patty is destined to end up with a white guy.

For Patty, that works just fine. For her mother, not so good. If her mom had her way, Patty would never get within twenty feet of a white guy, never mind date one. No, her mom wants what she didn't get herself--a marriage to a nice, respectable, rich Taiwanese doctor. Or, if there are no doctors available, a businessman would be acceptable. Never mind what Patty wants, which at this moment is knowing if the hottest guy at school, Mark Scranton, will ever notice her.

Stunned into yet more lectures about life as a poor Taiwanese girl, Patty's mother decides that this summer, instead of lounging around and possibly getting a part-time job, Patty will attend math camp at Stanford. Since her older brother, Abe, is busy "preparing" for his upcoming attendance at Harvard, he's no help to get her out of this bind. So Patty sets off to camp, resigned to hanging out with geeks.

Except math camp turns out to be not as bad as she'd thought. There's some really good-looking guys there, guys with brains. Like Stu, who blesses her with her first kiss. And might possibly end up breaking her heart. For Patty, this summer could end up teaching her a whole lot more than math. Things like what it's like to really be American, and learning to love who you are. Because there are guys out there who can love a hapa girl for who she is--if she'll just learn to love herself first.

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH is a great read for anyone who has ever had trouble discovering their identity, or for someone looking to find out how it feels to be different. A real winner! show less

Patty Ho has a Tawainese mother and an (absent) white father. Caught between two worlds, one in which Belly Button Grandmothers predict your future, and one in which dating, nail polish, and boys are normal pursuits for a fifteen-year-old, Patty's freshman year of high school has ended with an incomplete in English. Worse, Belly-Button Grandmother has predicted an accident and a relationship with a white boy. Patty's mother panics - no white boys! And ships Patty off to summer math camp at Stanford. What initially seems to be a fate worse than a summer of her mother's lectures turns out a wee bit better than expected.

Fun story - lots of teen angst, but handled creatively. Patty seems a bit older than 15 at times, but who didn't want to show more seem older at 15? show less

Patty Ho, a half white, half Taiwanese teenager is confused.Also, I admire that she didn't make Patty's story merely about finding her identity in terms of race but also in terms of her individual self. As with most books, there are a few lapses, mostly parts that feel rushed or genuine, but the rest of the book is too good to really complain too much about it.

Justina Headley Chen's Nothing but the Truth and a few white lies was interesting with how the author incorporated two types of races into a stereotypical asian life.
The book really illustrated a fairly typical asian life. In this case it was Taiwanese- based, and the main character, Patty Ho, battled between a very strict taiwanese mother and a missing "gweilo" white father. I liked how the author made the beginning fairly straightforward; Patty was made fun of at school for her unusual race or "colour", but towards the end her life didn't seem so bad and she became more positive with her mother as well.
It's a good book to read, but this is not every asians life.