What I Saw and How I Lied (2008) (edit title/settings)

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Characters/People edit see section history

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• Evelyn "Evie" Spooner: A almost sixteen year old girl who falls for an older boy while she is vacationing in Florida with her mother and step dad at the Le Mirage Hotel.
• Beverly Spooner: Evie's beautiful mother with blond hair and blue eyes. Orphaned at 14...parents died in subway train when it got off course. Got married at 17 and her husband soon left her.
• Joe Spooner: Beverly's second husband who fought in WWII.
• Peter Coleridge: Very handsome 23 year old ex-GI. Knows Joe from WWII.
• Grandma Gladys "Grandma Glad": Kept watchful eyes over Beverly. Not very friendly towards her. Thinks that Beverly is a tramp and not goodenough for her son.
• Arlene Grayson: Guest at Le Mirage who became friends with the Spooners and Mr. Coleridge.
• Tom Grayson: Guest at Le Mirage who became friends with the Spooners and Mr. Coleridge. He owns a hotel back in New York called Metropole.
• Walter "Wally" Forrest: Bellhop and valet at Le Mirage. He has a crush on Evie and is her age.
• Wilson Markel: Attorney who represented the Spooners. Silver hair and baby blue eyes. Very blunt and straight forward.

Quotes edit see section history

• “One thing I was always happy about, Evie. I was happy you grew up plain, all knees and elbows. You weren't some curly-headed doll. It meant you'd use your brain. And you did. I wanted to keep you that way for as long as I could. When you started getting pretty, I didn't want you to know it. I was just watching out for you, you see, the best I could. You've got to understand something. Mothers don't want their kids to make their mistakes." (p. 161)”

  Beverly Spooner

• “All the way back home, on the drive, I was thinking about penicillin," I said. "You know how they found it? The guy who found it was a slob. He kept his laboratory a mess, stuff everywhere__he'd leave it for weeks and months...and one day he finds a mold. It was an accident. Out of this mess, this contamination, comes...""Deliverance," Mrs. Grayson murmured. (p. 278)”

  Evie Spooner and Mrs. Grayson

• “When Alice fell down the rabbit hole, she fell slow. She had time to notice things on her way down -- Oh there's a teacup! There's a table! So things seemed almost normal to her while she was falling. Then she bumped down and rolled into Wonderland, and all hell broke loose. (p.2 allusion)”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• I found out that what you think is necessary, what you have to do—well, all of a sudden, that can cover plenty of new ground. It’s just a matter of what you’re willing to do.

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• I would never laugh at a joke I didn’t think was funny. I would never tell another lie. I would be the truth teller, starting today. That would probably be tough. But I was

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• “I don’t have a story,” I said. “I’m still waiting for one.”

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• In that gesture, in the way they leaned together, and how she took a drag and leaned back—it was like a dance I didn’t know. Right at that moment, I decided to learn.

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• “No,” I said. I looked right at him when I said it, just the way Joe had told me to when he’d taught me how to lie. Just the way he’d looked at me when he told me he hadn’t killed Peter.

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• The sky was full of stacked gray clouds and the air tasted like a nickel.

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• “Did you ever love Joe?” I asked. “Sure, baby,” Mom said. “But not as much as you did.”

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• I felt like the girl I saw, upside down and fun-house looking, all stretched out of shape and foolish, just from holding so much want inside.

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• I know now how you can take one step and you can’t stop yourself from taking another. I know now what it means to want. I know it can get you to a place where there’s no way out. I know now that there’s no such thing as just one. But I didn’t know it then.

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• A fat custard moon was splat in the purple sky, and a few stars were beginning to pop like fireworks.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• New York
• Florida
• Queens
• Miami
• West Palm
• Delray
• Long Island
• Palm Beach

First Sentence edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Judy Blundell (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• National Book Award (2008: Young People's Literature)

Notes for Parents edit see section history

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Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Teens › History & Historical Fiction › Historical Fiction
• Books › Children's Books › Literature › Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery & Horror › Mysteries, Espionage, & Detectives
• Books › Children's Books › People & Places › Family Life
• Books › Children's Books › People & Places › Explore the World › Fiction › United States

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