On Innocence and Lipstick

                Innocence isn't something that is given to us. We barely notice it's there until we lose it, which stands true for so many simple pleasures in life. Evie is no exception to loss. In “What I Saw and How I Lied” by Judy Blundell, Evie Spooner is fifteen in 1947; like all fifteen-year-olds, she dreams of being grown-up. Her story begins with a trip to the candy store with her best friend; they buy candy cigarettes so they can "practice smoking." Her friend considers smoking the ultimate in adult glamor; Evie finds that glamour in lipstick, which she's forbidden to wear until she's 18.

It's nearing the end of summer and Evie's stepfather Joe, recently returned from the war, wants to take his girls on a trip to Palm Beach. They stay in a glamorous, but near-empty resort, where Evie is reduced to playing hopscotch on the hallway carpet for lack of entertainment. 

But that all changes when Peter Coleridge shows up, Joe seems nervous around his former army comrade, but the Spooner girls take to him quite easily. Evie begins spending time with him, taking moonlight strolls, running along the beach and kissing, finding herself in the middle of her whirl-wind of a first love.

Although the first love plotline is the fluff of a typical coming-of-age story, What I Saw and How I Lied uses it (the fluff) as an introduction point for Evie's true growing experience. When Evie loses Peter tragically then becomes swept up in a murder investigation focused on her parents. The second half of the book centers on Evie's decisions about what she's capable of doing and her own decisions about moral right and wrong.

I've been reading a lot of books from the Young Adult section lately, but this is the first that really tries something different. Judy Blundell writes with a sharp  tone that adds a dash  melancholy to Evie's transition into adulthood. There's also a cinematic quality to the story in general - Evie's narration has that cynical, mysterious and the locations are very stylish, grand, and again, mysterious. 

Evie strives for glamour and poise every little decision is a lifetime of reputation. But she has a very innocent quality to her, Evie is smart and she knows her way around a dark city street. The reasons he feels so little, so unintuitive is mostly because of her mother, Beverly. Evie’s mother wouldn’t do anything to give Evie a sense of growing up, she wouldn’t buy the kind of clothes girls her age wore, she wouldn’t let her wear her hair the way she wanted, and she certainly didn’t let her date boys. It has less to do with the actions themselves but the gravity they hold. “It’s not all polka dots and moonbeams.” Beverly tells her daughter Evie about being grown-up, partially because Evie's mother was forced to be a grown-up so abruptly by getting pregnant at 17 and raising Evie on her own. And innocence is hardly issues when you have been taken care your whole life.

It's a story that stays with you, a stylish, thought-provoking, a believable coming-of-age story. But mostly, it's was a lovely book that I really liked reading.