Heartbreaking

Oh hey everyone this is me in a puddle on the floor feeling like a hot mess all because of Dan Gemeinhart's The Honest Truth.  

The featured review on the front cover says, "A heartbreaking, moving novel that makes you want to embrace the boy at its center and hold him close."  To be honest when I read that I thought, "whatever, sounds sappy, not gonna be me."  Well...you saw the picture...it was definitely me.

The Honest Truth is the story of Mark and his dog Beau.  And it is a beautiful example of the relationship between a boy and his dog (which you all know I love), but that's not the only reason it left me in a puddle on the floor.

You see Mark isn't an ordinary boy, he manages to have a deep friendship, just friendship, with a girl, he likes to write Haiku's and he has cancer.  Mark decides he isn't just going to sit back and let time run out-he's going to do that thing he's always dreamed of doing. Climb Mount Rainier.

So that's what he does.  And that's what the book is about.  But it is so much more than a boy climbing a mountain.  It is (warning here comes the sappy) friendship and pain, trust and hope, failure and redemption.  It is everything packed into 229 easy to read pages.

I read this book in one sitting.  I just couldn't put it down.  I strongly suggest you do the same.

Reaching the peak...that's kids stuff.