After finishing this, I took a few days to truly digest it. The writing is deep and powerful if one is able to just sit and listen to the voice that speaks. Ruth's journey is not unlike many Americans today. I felt the conflict, the friendship, and the hardships.

I think this will be a book I return to in the future. Thank you for allowing me to read it.

I’m judging a 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

If the title of doctor and lawyer had signaled success back in the day, then engineer had to be the 2.0 symbol that you’d made it.

I highly recommend this wonderfully written debut from Nancy Johnson which tackles issues of racial conflict & privilege. The Kindest Lie introduces us to Ruth as she travels back to her hometown to discover what happened to her child from years ago that she gave up. This decision enabled her to continue on her chosen life path & take the opportunities she'd always wanted and planned for herself. Now, as Ruth tries to learn more about her child, she realizes how much the choices she made years ago were made possible through the sacrifices of her family.

Do you ever wonder about the title of a book? 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐄 left me questioning that very thing. A number of lies surrounded Ruth, who’d had a baby at 17, just prior to leaving for college. There were lies Ruth’s family told her about her child, lies she told herself, lies of omission to her husband and friends, and lies that lingered many years later. So, which was the kindest lie? I suspect I know, but don’t want to ruin the story for you!⁣
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While I'd certainly call 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘓𝘪𝘦 a very easy, engaging read, it didn’t blow me away. I found Ruth’s back story to be repetitive and I thought author Nancy Johnson took some of her plot points a little too far, making them hard to buy into. I’d like to go further4, but again, I don't want to ruin the story for anyone. So, I think I’ll just leave it that!⁣

My thanks to William Morrow Books for this ARC.⁣

One of my 2021 goals is to diversify my reading more and read more books by BIPOC authors so I was so excited to join in with the #blcvipbookclub to read The Kindest Lie.

President Barack Obama has just been elected, there is a joyous feeling in the air, and Ruth Tuttle’s husband is eager to start a family, but Ruth cannot seem to escape a secret she has kept hidden for the past 11 years. As a teenager about to leave for Yale University, Ruth gave birth to a baby and was coerced into giving him up and moving forward with her life. Now years later, Ruth cannot stop thinking about her son. Ruth returns to her hometown of Ganton, Indiana to find her son, but as truths start to be revealed, Ruth starts to question if is there such thing as a kind lie?

I was completely blown away by this book. The story is told in the alternating perspectives of Ruth and Midnight, a young white boy that lives in Ruth’s hometown and she befriends on her return to town. The contrasts of race and class were so eye-opening and just another reminder that we need to do better. This is a story that I will think about for a long time! Highly recommend!

4.5/5 stars!
Thank you so much to William Morrow and Netgalley for my gifted copies in exchange for my honest review!

"The Kindest Lie" covers so many topics: race, social class, motherhood, and ambition. But I kept thinking about the word "closure" while I was reading this book. Something that each character, no matter the color of their skin, craved to find their peace.

Following a successful Black engineer, Ruth Tuttle, who kept a secret from her husband and friends for years, she revealed it to her husband after he wanted to start a family. She kept thinking about her son that she gave up before she went to Yale. Returning to her hometown that she left behind after years, Ruth rekindled her relationships with her family and old friends. She befriended a white boy named Midnight. Their stories were intertwined. One was craving a mother's love, and another one tried to confront her past.

After finishing the book, I am unsure if the closure was worth the pain that Ruth caused to her family, who sacrificed a lot for her. It also made me think about fairness when someone made a life decision for others. "The Kindest Lie" proves sometimes it’s hard to face reality so the only way is to tell a lie to ourselves.

This story had me from the first page and held my interest throughout. It handled so many important issues with grace and intelligence. I was fully absorbed in this novel and can't recommend it highly enough.

I was intrigued by The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson the moment I read its title and saw the cover. It’s a complex, well-written contemporary novel that raises more questions than it answers. A former journalist, I’ve heard Ms. Johnson’s work described as focused on the intersection of race and class in the US, and that describes this thought-provoking novel so well.

Main character Ruth, a young urban professional in Chicago, is caught between the euphoria of Barack Obama’s election as President and pressure from her husband to start their family. Serious talk of having a baby raises long-buried emotions and leads Ruth to celebrate Christmas in her hometown, a small Indiana city devastated when the primary employer closes its factory. Ruth reconnects with her brother, the grandmother who raised her, and childhood friends while also meeting people who will cause her to do things she didn’t think were possible.

In some literary serendipity, I read The Kindest Lie immediately after ‘Til I Want No More by Robin W. Pearson. Both were written by talented Black women early in their writing careers, each features a young professional who gave birth at age 17 but didn’t raise their child to attend prestigious universities, and both novels were published on 02/02/2021. Despite these similarities, these are very different stories, but I’d be first in line for a conversation involving both of these authors.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this novel, but it didn't take long at all for me to get wrapped up in this story. There's a host of characters to get invested in and care about, and your heart just goes out to Ruth and two certain little boys in this story. The pages really flew by. I highly recommend this one. Thanks, Netgalley, for my arc!

An engaging book by a promising debut author, The Kindest Lie kept me reading long past my bedtime. Several strong characters interact to tell, on the surface, a straightforward tale of a successful Black woman returning to the struggling working class town of her childhood. Nancy Johnson develops the characters credibly to tell several intertwined tales of race, struggle, disappointment, and loyalty. A satisfying read.

The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson is the story of a young woman who has tried to rise from her humble beginnings. She is happily married, has a good job, and a lovely home. Now the baby her husband wants is no longer a nebulous thing, somewhere in the future, but something immediate. She had to tell him the truth about what had happened to her when she was 17. How would he react? Well, he didn't react well. She went back home, partly to heal, partly to see if she could find her child. As she searched, it became apparent that it was not a legal adoption, but a personal one, arranged outside the law.

This was a heart-breaking story for many reasons. It was intensely personal, for one. It touched spots in me that hurt, despite the fact I had never been in this situation. Johnson wrote from the heart to the heart. It was difficult to read much of the time. Things can be when one has no power over them. I had no power, and she had no power. She just had pain, and her pain transfers to the reader. It was a moving story, although those words seem not enough to describe what she went through. Read it for yourself; it's the only way.

I was invited to read a free ARC of The Kindest Lie by Netgalley. All opinions contained herein are solely my own. #netgalley #thekindestlie

The Kindest Lie explores themes of family, being Black in America, the lengths we go for people we love, and sacrifice. The book explores a family secret that is bound to come out. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys family stories and character development. The novel shares an important look at being Black in America that takes an even more important perspective in today’s climate.

This was one of my most anticipated reads of early 2021 and it did not disappoint!

Ruth was raised by her grandparents after her drug addicted mother left her and her older brother. Ruth was smart and ambitious and was accepted into Yale. Then she got pregnant during her senior year and gave the baby up.

Years late, at almost thirty and being pressured to have children by her husband (who has no idea about the prior pregnancy), she goes back home to find her son.

This debut novel was amazing and timely. The book takes place in 2008 and Obama has just been elected. Racial tensions are high in Ruth's hometown. I loved benign the journey with her; she went home to look for her son, but she ended up finding so much more. She discovered truths she didn't know she was looking for. The writing was spectacular. The author tugged at my heartstrings while also weaving an intriguing mystery that made me want to keep turning the pages. I was on the edge of my seat, especially during the last few chapters.

This novel is a debut from Nancy Johnson. We start with Ruth and her husband in a Chicago affluent suburb. Ruth loves her husband but is not sure she is ready to have children with him. Ruth had a baby when she was a teen and was convinced that giving the baby up would be the best thing for everyone involved. Ruth went on to college and became a engineer. Ruth's husband did not know about the baby and when he found out he was upset that Ruth did not trust him with this information. Ruth unable to understand the emotions her husband had decided to go home to Indiana for the holidays. While visiting her hometown Ruth had to come to terms with choices she made for herself and her family in giving the baby away.

All the stars for The Kindest Lie! (#gifted @williammorrowbooks) This book has been getting ALL the buzz lately!
The Kindest Lie is the story of Ruth, a Black engineer living in Chicago at the time of Obama’s winning the election in 2008, who is keeping a secret from her husband: when she was in high school, she had a baby and gave him up for adoption, but she has no idea what happened to him. When that secret comes to light, she feels compelled to return to the small factory town where she grew up, in hopes of finding her child. The book explores race, class, family, and forgiveness, and I just loved it. It’s beautifully written with compelling characters, a vivid setting, and lots to discuss. This is out now and is also a February BOTM pick so I highly recommend getting yourself a copy!

Tough subject matter but enlightening and important to read. The Kindest Lie is on the short list for my next book discussion title.

this is an incredible story following Ruth and Midnight, two very different characters, about how their lives intertwine and how much they learn from the events that occur throughout the story.
I loved it. there's not much to say other than it definitely is a 2021 release everyone should read.

A poignant, thought-provoking story that explores class, race, motherhood, and how a lie and a secret can change the course of many lives. The gift of fiction is that it allows us to step into an other's experience and perspective and The Kindest Lie delivers on this promise.

The Kindest Lie encompasses so much. Not only the experience of being Black in a racially charged small town and the struggle to do what is best for your kid, but also what it means to try to reach the American Dream and how difficult that is for those from a poor economic class.

Most of the story is told from the POV of Ruth, a Black woman who placed her baby for adoption when she was a teen and now wants to return home to find out what happened to him. We also see the POV of Midnight, a poor young white boy who's trying to find a place to belong.

While Ruth does befriend Midnight, for a long time I had no idea why we were seeing events from both perspectives. Midnight is such a heartbreaking character. He struggles without a positive male role model, but some of the choices he makes are just cringe-worthy. I liked how the book ended, and without spoiling anything, how what we learn about Ruth's grandmother's choices cause Ruth to reflect on her own choices and the meaning of motherhood.

Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for a copy of this book!

https://boomerhighway.org/the-kindest-lie/

It's Black History month and Nancy Johnson's debut novel, THE KINDEST LIE, has just hit bookstores, gifting us with an evocative and emotional story.

Ruth Tuttle inhabits an unsettled world before and after Obama, a world of struggle and success--a world where family love is sometimes misguided and often based on secrets. An engineering degree from Yale has transported Ruth from the small Indiana town of Ganton, where she was raised, to the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. The novel begins on a special night--Ruth and her husband Xavier have gathered friends to await the results of the 2007 presidential election. When Obama wins, there is joy in the room, the future now seemingly boundless.

"Her whole life, Ruth hadn't dared to believe this could happen, and she almost forgot to breathe. A picture of the little house in Ganton came to mind...Mama at the kitchen table counting money on the first of the month. Papa's body quivering underneath his plant uniform as he tried to walk straight in the early days of his illness...To get here, to this moment. To this man with the funny name. To this day in history."

But their joy that night sparks in Xavier an amazing idea: if they had a child, now it might be possible for that child to become president. Ruth immediatly pushes back, asking: “Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?” knowing if this is truly what Xavier wants, her life will change, she being forced to face her past in Ganton, to remember Ronald Atkins.

They met in high school, Atkins, a white football player, Ruth's mouth becoming dry, just speaking his name. A story, eleven years past its due date, Johnson writes: "Ruth thought back to when she was seventeen, with Mama and her brother Eli looking down on her half-naked body in the bed, their faces tight with worry, urging her to push."

And then in those powerful moments of Obama winning, Ruth surrounded by her successful husband, her smart and successful Black friends, she questions if she has truly ever left Ganton, left Mama, the grandmother who raised her after Ruth's own mother left, seeking drugs, shrugging off responsibility, knowing that Mama would step up, would always be there rescuing family, even naming Ruth and her brother Eli.

Johnson writes: Ruth: one syllable, old school and biblical. A name that Ruth’s grandmother said would at least get her to the interview.

But though smart, farsighted and an indomitable Black woman, Mama cannot protect Ruth from every aspect of life, from Ronald Atkins, from the physical power of teenage sex, when this white football player tells a young innocent Black girl, "I see you," Ruth becoming fired with desire because, "Everyone saw him."

But as the “little knot of unripe fruit” grew, “everything felt like walking on the edge of a cliff.” Johnson knows how to fill in the background, these two burdened lovers dancing to “killing me softly" which in retrospect is exactly what Ronald Atkins did to Ruth. 

Johnson has created in Ruth, a character who epitomizes a woman who has found a new pathway and turned away from her past. But when that past rises, Ruth must know everything, make Mama tell her: who she gave her son to, where he is now living, how his life has been without her. Back in Ganton, a town suffering from a dying economy of closed plants, workers out of work, Ruth comes face to face with the poverty affecting people of all colors and stations. Searching for her son, she encounters a white boy of a similar age, named Midnight, encounters the loss, anger and futility that can affect children, no matter what color they are.  

Johnson has created real people, brought us into their kitchens to watch them cook wonderful foods, into a beauty salon to hear of their joys and sorrows, their complaints concerning how to raise a child, keep a business going. Though it's the holidays, there is poverty at Christmas, at New Years, where weather holds people inside to once again find joy in friendship and the lights of a small Christmas tree. Johnson's real people. We see it all, their weaknesses and strengths. We experience their honesty and their hidden lies, not only in reference to their own lives--where they live, how they live, how they struggle--but also in how they reveal their pride in Ruth and what she has accomplished. As Eli, her brother reminds her, “Nope, one baby don’t put you at ho status…” Certainly KIND and also honest.