“Everyone lies about their lives. What would happen if you shared the truth instead? The one thing that defines you, that makes everything else about you fall into place? Not on the internet, but with those real people around you?”-Clare Pooley

I love it when a random book catches my attention and surprises me in the most unexpected ways. The Authenticity Project completely surprised me and left me feeling all kinds of emotions. I absolutely love character driven stories, and this book introduces us to a whole group of characters that I became deeply invested in towards the end. The themes of mental health and authenticity were really well explored through these characters.

(Photo from @khanlibrary)

This is a story about a green notebook that brings a group of six strangers together. A word that kept coming to my mind when I was reading this story was serendipity. There were so many cute moments that took place all thanks to a notebook that asked readers to be brave and put their real self forward. It is not hard to imagine that such serendipitous moments could actually happen in real life if we all shared our authentic selves with the world.

I have to say that I absolutely loved each one of these flawed characters. I must also confess that every time I read Monica’s chapter I could not help but imagine the Monica from Friends. Did that happen to anyone else? The author really created an interesting character with Monica. The story she wrote in the green notebook about wishing for her own happily ever after lead to such an incredible chain reaction of events. Through Alice’s story we see the flip side of how the grass may not always be greener on the other side and sometimes happily ever after can look very different from what we imagine.

Hazard was such a complex and interesting character to read about. I’ll admit that I did not much like him in the beginning of the book but he really grew on me by the end. The same could be said about sweet old Julian. His story particularly gutted me and left me wanting to know more. A special shout out to Mrs. Wu and Lizzie. Those two characters were just the cherry on top of this sundae.

My only complaint about this book is that it had to end. I was so invested in all these character’s stories that I just wanted to know more about what happened to them down the line. I was hoping the ending could have given us a sneak peak into the future, but that is just my curiosity and inability to let this story end. I’m really impressed by the overall delivery of the story. It takes a talented writer to pull off having so many characters introduced in the story and making them all memorable. 

Happy Reading!