Truth Is

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Longlisted for the 2025 National Book Awards in Young Peoples Literature

From the critically acclaimed author ofAll the Fighting Partscomes an empowering and defiant novel in verse in which a teen poet grapples with an unplanned pregnancy and determines what happens to her body in a world that wants to take the choice away from her.

Seventeen-year-old Truth Bangura wants nothing more than to know a life beyond her hometown. Writing and performing is her only solace in a life overwhelmed by a drifting relationship with her best friend, an emotionally turbulent home environment, and the reality that her below average grades make her true dreamescaping her mothers grasp after graduationuncertain.

When Truth learns shes pregnant by her ex-boyfriend, she makes one decision shes finally sure about: an abortion.

Determined to move forward, Truth turns to the pages in her notebook with the support of her slam poetry teamincluding the poet with a voice smooth as summer jazz, whos been catching her eye during practice.

At an open mic night, Truth finally gains the courage to perform a piece that dives into her rocky relationship with her motherand reveals the choice she never told her. But when a video of Truths performance is posted online and starts going viral, her decision quickly becomes everyones businessincluding her mothers.

Told through searing free-verse, journal entries, and interspersed fill-in-the-blank poetry prompts, Hannah V. SawyerrsTruth Isreminds us there is always a choice. There is always hope. And there is always a way forward.