All the Truth That's in Me, Part 2

The other day I shared my review of All the Truth That's in Me, by Julie Berry, Viking (Penguin Books), September 2013. You can return to that post to enter to win the ARC.

I had a nice email exchange with the author, Julie Berry.  I was curious about her writing and revision process because of the unusual narrative style with very short chapters/scenes, a four-part structure, and the use of 2nd person POV ("You").  Technically it's not 2nd person as Julie explains below, but I'm not sure how else to describe it.  It's as if the main character is writing a letter to her best friend/love, and addressing him as "you," but it's not written in the format of a letter. You'll just have to read it and see for yourself!

Here's Julie's response, and she offered to send some of her newly printed, fun swaggy stuff to accompany the ARC giveaway.  Thanks, Julie!

From Julie:  The unusual format of All the Truth That’s In Me came about organically. The story simply wanted to be written that way, if that makes any sense. Judith, the main character, has a compressed kind of intensity in the way she sees her world. Her observations are fractured, as her existence has been. As an outcast in her community, and as a person who cannot speak, she endures long periods of silence, of boredom, drudgery, and loneliness – times of “no story.” But she survives this with the company of her own poignant, sometimes poetic thoughts. And so the narrative seemed to want to unfold in this granular manner, stitching observation to observation and event to event. 

The choice to employ second person (which, technically, this is not, since the “you” of the story is a character within the story, but that’s a bit of hair-splitting) was a deliberate decision, an experiment at the very start, that begot the germ of the idea. But the form, ie, the short chapters, came about naturally, not deliberately. I loved how Judith seemed in charge of her story from the very beginning. She’s the most powerful heroine I’ve ever come to know through my own writing.

Enter to win the ARC giveaway of All the Truth That's in Me by Friday, June 5th here:  http://yafusion.blogspot.com/2013/06/agent-news-and-arc-giveaway.html

Coming September, 2013: All the Truth That’s In Me, a YA novel from Viking (Penguin Books). “Haunting and unforgettable.” – Ruta Sepetys, bestselling author of Between Shades of Gray and Out of the Easy. “Riveting.” – Judy Blundell, National Book Award-winning author of What I Saw and How I Lied. “Powerful.” – Rita Williams-Garcia, Newbery Honor author of One Crazy Summer. Read about it in Publisher’s Weekly.