How We Learned to Lie

May 1, 2018
Two teens struggle to make sense of their relationships with their families and each other as drugs, violence, a bad cop, and their own inexplicable choices change everything.Joan has a mind for biology and a passion for sea creatures. Her best friend, a boy nicknamed Daisy by his mother, has a passion for figuring out the telephone network and using pay phones to learn things he's not supposed to know. Neither understands the other's particular fascinations, but the two have been best friends since they were little and cannot imagine life without each other. Joan has been angry about her family's secrets and silences since her mother moved from the outskirts where they live into New York City to pursue work in the theater. When Daisy's reckless older brother, Robbie, shows up with someone else's blood on his hands, Joan becomes determined to figure out what kind of trouble Robbie is in. However, Daisy pretends that nothing is wrong, and that lie cracks their bond of trust and ushers in many more lies between them. Set in 1979-80 and using alternating narrators, Miller's (Little Wrecks, 2017) tale offers a stunning portrayal of platonic love, the forces that push people apart, and the pains of growing out into the world. Joan is black, and Daisy is white.The plot unravels slowly, woven in beautiful prose. (Fiction. 14-18)

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June 1, 2018

Gr 9 Up-Joan is a young, black girl from Long Island who loves science. Daisy is a white, engineering-obsessed boy from a broken home. These neighbors and friends have different ways of looking at the world that help to inform the other. At the center of some shady dealings in their small town is Robbie McNamara, Daisy's brother. As Robbie gets deeper and deeper into crime and violence, Joan and Daisy are languidly driven apart as their views about Robbie start to deviate. This novel, loosely connected to Miller's Little Wrecks, takes place in 1979 and alternates between Joan's and Daisy's first-person perspectives. The book suffers somewhat from an extremely slow pace and constant foreshadowing, as characters hint but do not explicitly tell us what will eventually happen. There is not much action driving the plot. Robbie is mentioned more than seen, giving readers little investment in his character and ultimate fate. The story finds balance and grace in a few scenes between Robbie and his perfectionist mother, who seems disconnected and aloof concerning her children following her husband's untimely prison sentence. VERDICT Not recommended.-Ryan P. Donovan, Southborough Public Library, MA

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 28, 2018
The newest YA novel from Miller (Little Wrecks) takes place circa 1979–1980 on Long Island with chapters alternating between Joan and Daisy, best friends and neighbors who have wildly dissimilar interests. Joan, who is black, is interested in marine biology; Daisy, a white boy who was nicknamed by his mother, has a knack for hacking into phone systems. Both have complicated families, which in Daisy’s case, leads to his being abandoned. An undercurrent of dread runs throughout the story, and Miller’s vivid, haunting writing is filled with prose gems (“I took a big breath and dove straight into Nick Tomaszewski without checking first to see how shallow he was,” Joan narrates). Daisy and Joan’s longtime friendship is engaging, and their internal monologues are revealing and compelling, yet narrative murkiness impedes forward momentum: by the time tragedy is set in motion, the events feel anticlimactic and disconnected, even for these two promising characters. Ages 14–up.

April 15, 2018
Grades 9-12 Set in 1980 in the same small Long Island town as Little Wrecks (2017), Miller's new novel follows Joan Harris and Anthony Daisy McNamara during a tumultuous year, when secrets full of dead bodies and sleazy policemen . . . sex and angel dust and death break them apart. Joan, a member of Highbone's only black family, is angry at her mother for taking a job in the city, and even angrier that no one else considers it a betrayal. Daisy's father is in prison, his brother Robbie is an addict, and his mother has checked out. The pair has always taken care of each other, but everything changes the year Robbie starts dealing angel dust. Joan and Daisy take turns narrating, providing different outlooks and insights on the same events and highlighting how lack of communication damages their friendship. Miller's style is languid and portentous, spending more time ominously foreshadowing than confronting the narrative's dark events. This is for readers who enjoy poetic, character-driven fiction and don't mind some gauziness to their grit.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2019
Miller returns to small-town Long Island (Little Wrecks) to explore the effects of drug dealing and violence on bystanders. Joan and best (male) friend Daisy alternate narration, as they share a deep desire to cling to their friendship in the face of secrets and lies. The 1980 setting is well developed, and Miller's graceful prose and unhurried pace complement the menacing atmosphere.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)