Book Review: If I Tell by Janet Gurtler

Summary: Jasmine Evans knows one thing for sure... people make mistakes. After all, she is one. Jaz is the result of a onenight stand between a black football player and a blonde princess. Having a young mother who didn't raise her, a father who wants nothing to do with her and living in a small-minded town where she's never fit in hasn't been easy. But she's been surviving. Until she sees her mom's new boyfriend making out with her own best friend. When do you forgive people for being human or give up on them forever?


Review: When I figured out I got to review this book for Librarything, I got really excited because the cover is really pretty and it sounded like a great book. Once I started reading it, though, I got a story that I wasn't really expecting. Yes, Jaz was dealing with a huge secret she had to keep from her mom while dealing with her emerging feelings for Jackson, but a large amount of the book dealt with Jaz's difficulty with her race. Jaz's mom was white while her dad was black, so Jaz is biracial but she grew up surrounded by white people because her dad left before she was born (they were 17 when they had her). And when I say a large amount of the book dealt with this, I mean a LARGE amount of the book. I kind of got tired of Jaz's complaining of not being comfortable with who she was because she brought it up all the time. Then, near the end she was accusing everyone of being racist and it seemed kind of unbelievable that so many people would be bothered with biracial relationships. So that part about the book bothered me, but the rest of it was really good. Jackson is impossible not to like and I was anxious to see what would happen if, or when, Jaz told Simon or her mom about the secret she saw. In the end, some things weren't completely resolved (like the part with the mom) but everything else was addressed in the end. If I Tell was a nice quick read that was very different from the normal high school dramas. It deals with real issues, but also provides the romance that we, well at least I, love to read.