honestly I've gotten around 30% and I can't read any more it's just so repeative and the main character is just such a brat and I'm not on board with this way of portraying mental illness. Then there was this one part that that Ella who loves Brazil says she doesnt even speak Spanish! Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought people from Brazil spoke Portuguese. From the very beginning this story just annoyed me and I won't be continuing

I requested this book on NetGalley as the blurb held great promise and captured my interest. The beginning of this book was descriptive and narrative flowed well. The more in depth the book for the more it seemed to lose its edge and I found myself getting bored by Ella/Bella's teenage dramatics. As for her issues with her sense of self, it seemed amateurish and rushed. I wanted to see more Jack and Lily and relationship development rather than Ella finding her "happy ever after" in the lobby of her hotel.

I did find the premise of villain/hero being the same individual fascinating and would have loved to see some development of Bella, when all we get as readers is "demon!" , "monster", "evil".

I didn't have much love or connection to Ella and found her dull for a central character. Though her abduction and relocation to Rio didn't help my perception of her. If you senses your child was in danger you would get the Police involved, tell your child why you've kept their prior identity a secret and do everything to protect them, even if they decide to shut you out. To me that seems logical and sane.

There isn't a lot of good about this book other than showing the knowledge of a teenager who thinking she knows all is put in her place, especially about the one pace she'd dreamed of going one day.

A good effort but lacks pizzazz.

I was very much looking forward to this novel as I’ve read a previous novel from this author and it’s very good , I found it a little hard to get into at the beginning and it frustrated me lots but after the first few chapters I couldn’t put it down.

I enjoyed the start, Ella at school, her friends Lily and her "boyfriend" Jack. Her art, and her parents. And her "bad "side", Bella, who she had to keep under control.
Then it all went crazy, and she's off to Rio (why, of all places, unless it's jut to show the author's knowledge of Brazil), with her parents, and no explanation, other than something overheard on the radio, which gives a clue.
As she pieces together her parents' secret, and runs away, while discovering the love of her life, credibility is stretched even more.
Her experiences as someone destitute rang partly true, but the way she recovered and then resolved her issues required a great suspension of belief.
And the "explanation" of Ella/Bella was far too straightforward.
I know this is a YA book, and I'm certainly much older than the target audience, but even so, I found it hard to find much to recommend it.

This book is very different from others I have read lately. The story itself is unusual. I found the beginning frustrating as Ella's parents did not tell her what the problem was and she went through a lot before finding out.. The story held my attention throughout and I did enjoy it. I expected more from the ending.

Emily Barr has really knocked it out the park with her latest young adult novel. The Truth and Lies of Ella Black is a superb psychological thriller for the young adult audience.

Our eponymous heroine Ella Black has a dark side that she has always tried to keep hidden away but when her parents whisk her off on an impromptu holiday and take her phone away from her, Ella’s bad side starts creeping out.

The holiday to Rio reveals some things about Ella’s past that cause her whole word to crumble an Ella ends up finding her real self by getting lost in the hustle and bustle of one of Rio’s favelas.

Barr has really created a character with depth and emotional layers with Ella Black. She is easy to relate to and you cannot help but feel her desperation. She is brave and fierce and definitely a heroine for generation Z.

The Truth and Lies of Ella Black by Emily Barr is available now.

For more information regarding Emily Barr (@emily_barr) please visit www.emilybarr.com.

For more information regarding Penguin Random House Children’s UK (@PenguinRHUK) please visit www.penguinrandomhouse.co.uk.

Having read Emily's first book - The One Memory of Flora Banks I was so keen to read her next title. I enjoyed the book. Ella's parents were a little annoying and I found myself second-guessing where the story was going. Overall a good quick read and one which I am definitely recommending to my Secondary School Students. Overall, really enjoyed the story and I like the style of Emily's writing. One to look out for in YA!

Overall I sadly didn't enjoy this book , I didn't like how mental health was portrayed in this book or the romance and the whole plot was a little bit predictable for me.

My full review is linked below

Compelling with a really interesting premise and location. I didn't entirely suspend my disbelief in places, particularly with the love interest, but this is a fresh, unusual and interesting narrative.

This book is not for me I could not get into it.

As usual a really fabulous read - even although it’s a young adult book. 9/10

I don’t read a lot of young adult fiction, but I really enjoyed the one memory of Flora Banks and was excited to read this.
I really connected with Ella, I felt she was a strong, interesting character and I was left wanting more.
A brilliant book which I will definitely be recommending.

I didn't like this book that much. I didn't like the The One Memory of Flora Banks either, but that was written so much with that character's voice and her memory problems in mind that I wanted to give the author another chance. And I warmed to her writing style a lot more, but she still had this habit of going through everything that the character knows about the situation every few chapters. It may be fairly realistic when you're in this type of situation to stop and take stock of what you know, but in a book it makes it repetitive and annoying.

I also felt the multiple personality/ dissociative disorder stuff was kind of harmful to people who suffer from that kind of thing. Whenever you see an alter personality in a book or a film or anything really it's always a bad one. And sure maybe that helps your story seem more dramatic if your character is pushing her to kill people all the time, but there are real people out there living in a world where that's what people think their condition means. If the market was more saturated with positive books or films then it wouldn't be so big of a deal, but everything out there just makes people more scared of the condition.

I don't know how much research Barr did, but the whole thing felt clumsy and like she hadn't thought about the people suffering through this sort of thing.

As happens so much of the time, this book uses mental health issues as a form of entertainment for those not living through it and I'm getting pretty sick of it.

I have to be honest and say that at first the story wasn't what I was expecting it to be. But that's only because I wasn't prepared for Ella's psychological defence mechanism. It's an important part of the story and tells us much more about her first experiences than words, however, it took me quite a while to feel anything for Ella. Once that kicked in the countdown meant much more to me ...

There are many layers to The Truth and Lies of Ella Black. Yes, it's a coming of age story (although I would hazard a guess that you haven't read one quite like this) but it is so much more. Her reactions at first are a typical teen with the world revolving around her. Her experiences on the run teach her a lot, not just about life but about herself too. She experiences love and betrayal. It's been interesting seeing Ella change from a 17yo wrapped up in cotton wool to a force to be reckoned with.

Things changed for me in the favela. My heart got involved. As the countdown brought us closer to the day I just didn't want it to happen. She'd found her tribe (even it was only temporary) and surely there would be a future for her? What could possibly happen?

There's more than one twist to this story. The ending turned everything I thought upside down. Now I wasn't so sure. Learnt behaviour? Nature? Nurture? What did that say about her adopted parents? I love a story that is ambiguous and leaves me with no concrete answers. Plenty to ponder ...

YA readers will identify with the feelings of a teen and possibly take inspiration from Ella's experiences. Strength, determination, resilience. Traits we all aspire to. One for your reading lists.

Despite this being YA fiction, I actually quite enjoyed it. It was a strangely compelling read and not quite what I'm used to, sometimes quite disturbing with Ella's emotional rollercoaster of a journey. If you are a fan of Emily Barr then you may be in for a surprise with this book.

A promising situation undermined by an unlikeable protagonist. 3/5 stars.

Last year, Emily Barr’s previous book – The One Memory of Flora Banks – was the only book I gave 5 stars to. I loved Flora, I loved her story, and so I was excited to get my hands on a copy of The Truth and Lies of Ella Black. I had high hopes.

I’m sad to say I didn’t love this book. And this even though there are many similarities between Ella Black and Flora Banks: both give us a female teenage protagonist with mental health issues, struggling with seemingly rubbish parents who are keeping secrets from them. However, while I found Flora instantly likeable, Ella came across as whiny and, until quite late in the book, tremendously ungrateful, immature and annoying.

As the entire book is narrated from Ella’s point of view, it was a long time to be stuck in the headspace of someone I didn’t particularly care for. Not even the colourful travelogue aspects of the book – as we get a tour of the main sights of Rio – could offset her more irritating personality traits.

The other characters, who might have acted as a buffer for Ella’s less attractive qualities, lacked depth. Weirdly this makes sense: the story is told from Ella’s point of view and she’s so egocentric no-one else is given enough consideration to become fully-fleshed. Just another reason I can’t get on with her!

The romance thread of the plot should have come over as sweet, but instead struck me as an example of Ella’s reckless and ill-judged behaviour. Meanwhile neither the big secret or twist surprised me at all as I thought they were telegraphed fairly clearly from early on in the book. And sadly the countdown to “her” death (not a spoiler, it’s there right from the front cover!) failed to fill me with suspense because you have to care for a character to worry about whether they’re going to die or not.

On balance, Ella’s rougher experiences do lead to some personal growth by the end of the book (but she takes her time about it!) and in her affection for her two best friends we do see something of her softer side, but these glimpses are sadly rare.

Overall: skip this and read The One Memory of Flora Banks. And if you’re thinking of picking up Ella Black because you enjoyed Flora Banks, I’d suggest you re-read Flora.

This book started really strongly - I was pretty hooked, with the plot and characterisation both really strong. In fact, it was set out to be a great read until about half way through. After that, I was just waiting for it to finish. Things devolved, not really in terms of quality, but the book became jam-packed with so many plot points that it felt as if Barr was trying to cram all her ideas into one book. It was a shame that the reader just became overloaded with so many plotlines one after another that all motivation and interest was lost. Barr's not a bad writer, I just hope her next book isn't trying to address twenty nine ideas all at once.

No no no no no. This book is awful and I completely hated it. The blurb really intrigued me and I was looking forward to a good family drama suspense story. I will admit I was a little apprehensive picking up another book from Emily Barr after not loving ‘The one memory of Flora Banks’ but this was even worse.

As the book began I was interested in the idea this book might look into mental health but the way it’s dealt with is terrible. Within 10 pages of the book Ella gets a hammer her other self “Bad Ella (Bella)” has hidden under a bed and smashes a bird to death. It was graphic and gross and unnecessary in the way it was approached!

Ella herself is whiny and rude and just down right ungrateful and I feel sorry for her adoptive parents. She felt like an incredibly unrealistic character and a lot of the decisions made with her character could have been better.

The writing style in my opinion was very simple and I don’t think that helped in terms of conveying the story and themes and issues well ether.

A highly disappointing read and unfortunately I think this is the end of my tries with Emily’s work.

Thank you netgalley for a copy of this ARC.

1/5 stars

I was so excited to read this book, so hyped and I adored Emily Barr's The One Memory of Flora Banks! However this book was just so disappointing.

I don't think the author handled things in this book very well at all - about 13 or so pages in, we meet Ella's bad side, Bella. Her cat brings in a live animal and 'Bella' gets a hammer that Ella keeps in her room so that 'Bella' can smash and destroy things to keep her satisfied - anyway, 'Bella' grabs the hammer, puts the bird down and smashes it with a hammer to ease her bad side. I did not like this bit, at all. There were so many things the author could've done instead of killing an innocent bird and then saying Ella was putting it out of its misery. There was also no trigger warnings to say there'd be anything like this in the book, I'm a major animal lover and this just broke my heart.

Ella's parents whisk her away to Rio after pulling her out of school but they won't tell her why, so she ends up being a complete brat, acting absolutely awful to her parents and rebelling against them every moment she can, even though it's her dream to go to Rio. The first morning there, Ella sees this boy in the lobby and is instantly in love with him and the only thing they say to each other is 'Hola.' Fast forwards to the second morning where Ella makes plans with the boy called Christian at breakfast to sneak out of her hotel room dead of the night to meet him at a bar nearby. Despite the fact, she doesn't know anything about him and randomly decides to meet him even though he could be someone bad? (he's not, but I'm just saying.) Anyway, she goes, they meet, they kiss and Ella is now "in love" with him. It's an instant love scenario, don't get me wrong, I believe in and understand love at first sight, but what I don't believe or get is meeting someone, instantly saying you love them, even though you know nothing about them and acting like you've been in a relationship with them for ages. Plus Christian at the beginning just seems to be in it for sex because after spending the time at the bar the next day he asks if she could come to his room later on. I'm sorry but that's not the kind of thing I'd want to do after knowing someone 5 minutes but obviously Ella is up to it.

However that doesn't happen because Ella finally finds out what her parents have being hiding from her, she cracked open the safe and found out she was adopted. So she prepares to run away but her parents come back and they go to a bar to talk things out, her parents say they tried to tell her when she was younger but she refused to listen so they went to a doctor/therapist to find out why she was refusing to believe it and end up deciding maybe it's best not to tell her, if it was me, I'd be upset but I wouldn't go psychotic because my parents lied to me, they clearly tried to tell her but she wouldn't have it. Her adopted parents love her and have done absolutely everything for her, she grew up with an amazing life. But finding out she's adopted sends her absolutely crazy so she decides to smash her dad's beer bottle and tries to hurt her mother but ends up accidentally slicing a mans cheek. Instead of gong rationally about it. She runs away.

Ella finds out who her real mother is when she runs away to an island and borrows someone's laptop, it turns out her mother went to prison and her father too, for murder. Once finding out about this, Ella throws the laptop which isn't even hers, onto the floor thus breaking it, and SURPRISE - running away once again.

The ending of this book was absolutely awful, and cut short, her real mother finds her and tries to talk to her about how she was glad she was caught because she didn't really want to murder those people but her boyfriend - Ella's real dad, I would say peer pressured her into it. So after her mother - Amanda - finally talks to her, and tries to get Ella to have some sort of relationship with her, which I understand that Ella doesn't want to but I'm sure she has some questions she wants to ask her however pretty much after we meet Ella's birth mother, Amanda is then promptly run over and killed. 

There is an epilogue at the end of this book where Ella writes a letter or email to her adopted parents which lets us know that Ella stays in Rio and hasn't seen her parents ever since she ran away, which I think is a bit harsh? They must be absolutely heartbroken that Ella wouldn't come home after everything. 

Sadly, I don't recommend this book, I wish the author handled things better and more rationally but I was just let down and disappointed.

I am not sure what to say about this book. It captured the turmoil which many teenagers experience so I guess I would recommend it as teens and young adult genre. it was a bit strange as I was reading it through adult eyes but I do think teenagers would enjoy it. Adventure, romance, secrets and a runaway. What more could a teenager ask for? Thanks to Net Galley for my copy. I reviewed on Amazon, Goodreads and Facebook.