![]() ![]() At long last, you had a true friend alongside whom to navigate all the beauty and cruelties of the world, a kindred soul so entwined with your own, it was as if you had both spent the whole of your lives searching for each other. You remember that, despite the twelve months and grade level separating you two, your connection with Hannah was immediate and fierce, outsiders united. Until several weeks into high school, when new girl Hannah Garber-older, bolder, unapologetic-blew into your life. Thus, your life remained remarkably unremarkable… You remember how, for two long years, your only friendship came in the form of the countless fairy tales you devoured, all the while convincing yourself that you preferred the company of bound books to that of your schoolmates anyway. There, in the vastly different landscape of small-town public school, you did not fit in with your new classmates, possessing neither the right surname nor the code to unlocking the secrets of local etiquette-or so your peers were quick to inform you. Then, on the verge of adolescence, you remember the day a scandal drove you and your family from San Francisco up to rural Oregon and a town called Prosper. Though you lived in a big city, you were educated at home by your mother, so you’d grown up a bit sheltered and socially awkward. ![]() You remember your childhood as remarkably unremarkable. You Remember the Beginning You remember the beginning The Secrets We Keep explores the complex, powerful bonds of friendship and family, asking the difficult question: At what point does Emma’s loyalty to another become a betrayal of herself? And perhaps the toughest question of all: Can Emma find the strength to finally unbury her secret? Excerptġ. As Emma wrestles with this impossible decision, her fractured past begins to resurface piece by painful piece-causing the line to blur between her present-day reality and the dark fairy tales she writes to survive, all of which threaten to expose Emma’s long-buried truths. High school freshman Emma Clark harbors a secret-a secret so vile it could implode her whole world, a secret she’s managed to keep buried…until the day her best friend, Hannah, accuses Emma’s father of a heinous crime.įollowing her father’s arrest and torn between loyalty to Hannah and to her family, Emma is devastated to learn she must testify against Hannah’s word in order to keep her family together. In the vein of The Way I Used to Be and Kelly Loy Gilbert’s Conviction, this “exceedingly well-written, powerful, and suspenseful” ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review) young adult novel follows a girl’s struggle to reconcile friendship, sexual abuse, and the secrets we bury deep down inside to survive. “Visceral…a vital, heart-wrenching account of one teen’s harrowing experience.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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