From the Kitchen of Half Truth

April 22, 2013
Meg May's mother Valerie told the most fantastic stories, and as child Meg believed them, thinking it possible that she could blow up like a beach ball after drinking too much carbonated lemonade or capture fairies in milk bottles. At age eight, Meg was humiliated in front of her class after repeating a story about beans that could run and decided to rely only on common sense and logic from that point on. Now a scientist at the age of 21, Meg has returned home to care for her dying mother and attempts to seek the truth about her past. She realizes that the hunt for her father, a French pastry chef who died in a pastry-making accident, not only brings people back into her mother's life that she's unwilling to face, but may lead Meg down a road that she's not ready to travel. With the encouragement of Ewan, the attractive gardener, Meg opens her mind to Valerie's flighty thinking. In this touching debut novel about the relationship between a mother daughter, Goodin does effectively portrays Meg's annoyance at her mother's stories, but Valerie's obliviousness to Meg's frustrations grates. Nevertheless, Meg's love for Valerie is as clear as her logic.

February 1, 2013
Goodin's debut about a woman who prefers to look at the world through rose-colored glasses and a daughter who views everything in terms of black and white blends humor and inspiration but may leave some readers feeling half-full. Meg May recalls few specifics about her early childhood, but she does remember the whimsical details provided by her mother, Valerie. According to her mom, Meg is the daughter of a pastry chef who died in a terrible pastry-mixing accident; Meg clucked like a chicken when she was born; the small scar on Meg's face was caused by a crab cake, which bit her; and when she was a year old, she climbed into a freezer and had to defrost in a tub of hot water for two hours. Meg believed these and many more stories until she was 8 years old and wrote about her earliest memory, which she read to her class. Humiliated by her peers' laughter when she recounted how her mother chased running beans throughout the kitchen, thereafter Meg rejected any element of make-believe and turned toward science as an orderly, logical way to view the world. Now grown, Meg leaves her studies at Leeds University to care for Val during the final stages of her cancer, and she realizes that this may be her last chance to learn the truth about her past. But Valerie won't even admit she's ill, much less acknowledge that her tales are nothing more than fantasy. A story about understanding and compassion and how people often distort the truth to protect themselves and others, Goodin's narrative contains moments of eloquence, wit and sensitivity, but it's difficult to ignore the overall saccharine tone of the novel and its fairy-tale characters: Ewan, the pure-hearted hero who communicates with plants and animals; Meg, the beautiful young damsel in distress who finds herself slowly drawn into Ewan's orbit; Mark, the unpleasant, regimented and controlling boyfriend who pushes Meg to confront her mother; Val, the free-spirited, generous and loving woman who lives in her own world; the members of the band Chlorine; the buffoonish, lovable dwarves--er, men--who've never grown up. Somewhat enjoyable.

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Starred review from March 15, 2013

Meg May was raised on intricately woven, beautifully told fantasies. Her mother, Valerie, didn't leave room in their lives for differentiating between truth and fiction, and Meg learns on a hard day at school that her memories aren't accepted as reality. Stories her mother has told throughout her life that make up her history are ridiculed by classmates and teachers. She burns with shame and confusion, and has a sudden distrust of her mother's world of fancy. Grownup Meg, now a scientist, moves home when Valerie becomes ill and refuses to acknowledge it. In reality, she's dying; in her persistent fantasy world, she carries on cooking, baking, and telling elaborate stories to Meg and their new gardener, Ewan, while Meg chips away at the past until she unearths pieces that begin to make sense. As Valerie's illness progresses, Meg must decide whether reality, however harsh, is more important than comfort. VERDICT An impressive and heartfelt debut that will appeal to many readers, this charming and sensitive mother/daughter story captures the struggle between protection and isolation.--Julie Kane, Sweet Briar College Lib., VA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2013
Meg May, a genetics student, has always taken extreme comfort in the world of science. Facts are facts, laws are laws, and imagination has no place in the laboratory. Meg wasn't always so levelheaded. Growing up with a mother who invented stories about everything from garden fairies to Meg's own upbringing, Meg has only been able to piece together a few details about her father and where she grew up, but hardly anything else. When her mother becomes very sick, it's up to Meg to figure out how much of her history she's willing to uncover and how many of her mother's fantastic stories may have held a shred of truth. Fans of Sarah Dessen and Carol Cassella will appreciate Goodin's clear, lyrical prose and will relate to stubborn, strong-willed Meg. Peppered with fantastically descriptive stories from Meg's childhood, Goodin's debut novel focuses on identity, independence, and the importance of imagination. Funny, tender, quirky, and heartfelt, From the Kitchen of Half Truth is for anyone who has daydreamed about the future or been shocked to find something unexpected in the past.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)