All of This is True by Lygia Day Penaflor

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All of This is True by Lygia Day Penaflor gives us a vision of obsession, betrayal, and the blurred line between fiction and reality. Join us as we chat about this new YA thriller with author Amanda K. Morgan. (transcript)

In today’s episode…

In the new novel, All of This Is True, we unravel the story of a group of friends and an author they’re obsessed with. When Miri, Soleil, Penny, and Jonah get a chance to meet the author Fatima Ro, they have to make sure it’s perfect. They have to make sure she notices them. Told in alternating sequences of interviews, text messages, and excerpts from Fatima’s new book, All of This is True gives us a vision of obsession, betrayal, and the blurred line between fiction and reality.

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Episode highlights…

Spoiler-Free

*4:23: Amanda K. Morgan shares one of her tools for creating suspense

*6:40 Discussing the unique format of the book

*10:40 Teenage obsessions and J.K. Rowling

Things We Like A Latte

Danielle: Riverdale

Mandy: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Amanda: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Spoiler-Informed 

*18:32 The ‘weight’ of a book

*22:01 Jonah’s secret, and what happens when Fatima discovers it.

*26:47 Soleil and her notes

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More ideas and resources for teachers and librarians…

The biggest thing we discuss in this episode is dissecting suspense and analyzing unreliable narrators. You can check out this blog post about Unreliable Narrators in YA Lit for more ideas about how to approach this. In terms of creating suspense, you can have your students try Mandy’s “worst-case scenario” writing exercise. Students can draw mundane situations from a hat and then try to paint their characters into a corner. We also dive into three other YA thrillers in Episode 3: Scandals!

Like Mandy, we love the book We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. I even have some resources in my TeachersPayTeachers store for teaching this novel.

Get in touch with us on Instagram and Twitter at @yacafepodcast or email us at yacafepodcast@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Credits…

Hosts: Danielle Hall (who blogs at teachnouvelle.com)

          & Amanda Thrasher (a booklover extraordinaire)

Guests: Amanda K. Morgan, YA author

Producer: Leila Hobbs

Music: Matt McCammon

Thank you to HarperTeen for sending us review copies of this novel.