Tell Me a Secret

Tell Me a Secret
by Holly Cupala

It's tough living in the shadow of a dead girl. . . .

In the five years since her bad-girl sister Xanda's death, Miranda Mathison has wondered about the secret her sister took to the grave, and what really happened the night she died. Now, just as Miranda is on the cusp of her dreams—a best friend to unlock her sister's world, a ticket to art school, and a boyfriend to fly her away from it all—Miranda has a secret all her own.

When two lines on a pregnancy test confirm her worst fears, Miranda is stripped of her former life. She must make a choice with tremendous consequences and finally face her sister's demons and her own. (description taken from Amazon.com)

First off, can I just say that Jenna Lamia is an AH-MAZING narrator. She took this wonderful book and squeezed even more emotion out of it, so that I spent three days tearing up in the car (okay, okay, full on sobbing sometimes...) on the way to and from work! That does NOT make for a pretty face, but it does make for an excellent listening experience. I highly recommend the audio version of this book!

Onto the book itself - Cupala blew me away. I am not a huge fan of this type of realistic fiction...what's sometimes known as the "problem" book. I didn't even really know that that was what this book was about, really. Sadly, I just downloaded the serialized podcast because I recognized the cover and it was free. (I'm such a sucker for free stuff!!) I am SOOO glad that I did, though.

I feel honestly that though this is a hot cover, it is highly misrepresentational of the book itself. This is a deep book about family, betrayal, redemption, love, teen pregnancy and most of all finding yourself. Romance...yes, I suppose the tiny incident of conception counts, but really this is not a book that needs a steamy cover. Not at all. I had completely different expectations for this book because of the cover.

However, I was beyond pleasantly surprised at the depths of this book. Cupala picked my heart up and squeezed out all the emotional juice in one awesome scene after another. Poor Miranda, sometimes Mandy, wants to be Rand, just has to fight for her right to be herself. She loses all her friends, alienates herself from her family, and finally deals with a huge ordeal almost completely on her own. Though it took bringing her to her lowest point, she is a fighter, and she came out of the depths a new and better person and I was right there cheering every time little step on.

I can't even really say how much I really enjoyed this book other than to say that when my computer refused to cooperate and I couldn't get it to download the second half, I had a full on breakdown and cried until my husband (whom I will love FOREVER) managed to wrangle iTunes into submission so that I could finish it.

Full disclosure: Listened to the free serialized podcast of the audiobook from the book's website - www.tellmeasecretnovel.com