What do you think is the definining moment for the main character/person in your book? Why?

The entire story of What I Saw and How I Lied is a coming of age tale for Evie Spooner. She starts the book as an inexperienced and naïve girl, and throughout the book she enters into experiences that strip her of her innocence. Some of these experiences she willingly submits herself to, such as her budding romance with Peter Coleridge. Some, however, are forced upon her, either by Peter, her parents, or fate. She is forced to recognize that her stepfather whom she adores and admires, is not the man she accepted him to be. When he came home from the war, he started his own appliance store with money he said he got from a GI loan. She learns from Peter, however, that the two men came across a warehouse in the war that contained valuables belonging to Jews who had been sent to concentration camps. That's how he got his money.

These little losses of innocence weren't Evie's defining moments. Her defining moment came when she took all of the money Joe had gotten by selling the stolen goods and gave it to a Jewish woman the family had befriended in Palm Beach. Mr. and Mrs. Grayson were vacationing just like the Spooners were, and the two couples quickly became friends. The hotel management eventually found out that the Graysons were Jewish, and bluntly asked them to leave. Evie's reparations, while somewhat ineffective and misguided, were well-intentioned. She told Mrs. Grayson that even if she and Mr. Grayson wouldn't use the money, they doubtlessly knew people who could. Evie was trying to make up for the crime her stepfather committed against some specific Jewish people by paying different Jewish people. Not very effective, but she meant well.

How did the opening passage of the book (first paragraph up to first chapter) lead you to anticipate the ending of the book?

Judy Blundell starts her book with a chapter that can be found nearly verbatim towards the end of the book, at the climax of the action. It was like she pulled a Romeo and Juliet; she told us right off the bat exactly what was going to happen like in the beginning sonnet of Romeo and Juliet, and instead of making us put down the book because we already know the ending, it makes us want to keep reading. We know what will happen, but we still want to know how it happens. Blundell sets her story up with the heroine waking up alongside her knockout mother in a hotel room. You get the feeling that they have been staying there for a long time and something changed. Evie mentions that "We never went to the hotel dining room now. They knew who we were; they'd seen our pictures in the paper. We knew they'd be saying, Look at them eating toast -- how can they be so heartless?" which suggests that going to the dining room used to be a common occurrence for this girl and her mother. "They" saw their pictures in the paper, which means something happened to them that would have called for publicity. The characterization of the mother-daughter pair as "heartless" suggests that it was them who committed the act that earned their publicity, not that they had something done to them. All of this-along with the title-helped form my opinion that some scandal was going to occur and Evie and her mother would be a part of it.

I finished Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson and am now reading What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell.

This book is really juvenile and I probably shouldn't be reading it. Sorry! Nevertheless, it is entertaining. I've had it on my shelf for a long time, and I probably should have read it when I first got it. I would have been able to relate to the main character more (she is fifteen, and an immature fifteen at that) if I had read it earlier. I always feel bad, though, when I have books that people have given me for Christmases and birthdays and I never read them, so I felt mildly obligated.

What I Saw and How I Lied is a coming of age story about Evie Spooner. Her stepfather has returned from World War II and takes Evie and her mother on a spur of the moment trip from their New York home to Palm Beach, Florida. There, they meet Peter Coleridge, a 23 year old ex-soldier. It becomes apparent not only that Peter and Evie's stepfather Joe knew each other in the war, but that Joe really, really dislikes Peter. Drama and mystery ensues.

On Finishing "Neither Here Nor There"

At the beginning of his book, Bill Bryson never states exactly why he took this cross continental trip. He did say that he travelled across Europe as a young adult and wanted to go back to appreciate it yet again as an older man, but the first time he went with his friend, Stephen Katz. This time he did it entirely alone. Here is my question: Why would anyone want to backpack across Europe for an indefinite amount of time alone? What could be enjoyable about that? Certainly, I can understand wanting to spend an afternoon alone, a day, perhaps even a weekend. But I would never ever want to go to a foreign country where I didn't speak the language and have absolutely no one to rely on but myself. Doesn't Bill Bryson enjoy human companionship? He even left his pregnant wife at home! Why couldn't he have waited and taken this trip once she had their baby and had a lovely family vacation? I suppose it makes sense that perhaps his wife wasn't interested in traveling in an unknown land for that long, so maybe that was their compromise. He could have, however, travelled with a friend who was interested. Maybe even Katz again. Or, he could have gone and done whatever he wanted in whatever countries he wanted and then met his wife (and possibly children) in a more family and tourist friendly city. I just don't understand how he stayed sane. He couldn't even communicate with many of the locals. I just don't get it.