Four years ago Judith snuck out to meet up with her best friend who was to reveal to Judith who she was secretly having an affair with. But while Judith waits she witnesses something horrific and then disappears. Two years later she returns, but instead of elation from her friends and family she is scorned and forced to live a life of silence; Judith has come back mutilated.

As time goes on Judith creates a quiet life for herself, invisible to her family and townsfolk, until one day word of an imminent attack rushes through the town and people are advised to flee. Now Judith needs to decide whether to remain silent or return to the person who permanently silenced her, a risk that will expose herself and the person she loves to the rest of the town.

Set in what feels to be the seventeenth or eighteenth century, All the Truth That’s in Me is remarkably unconventional for the young adult genre. Written as before, after and now, the reader is exposed to Judith’s musings, or perhaps letters to her childhood friend, which are haunting and raw, making this a thoroughly compelling read that I finished in one sitting.

Katherine Dretzke