I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
The Storyteller by Kathryn Williams Published by HarperTeen on 1/11/22
Genres: Contemporary, Historical, Mystery & Detective, Young Adult
Pages: 368
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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It’s not every day you discover you might be related to Anastasia…or that the tragic princess actually survived her assassination attempt and has been living as the woman you know as Aunt Anna.
For Jess Morgan, who is growing tired of living her life to please everyone else, discovering her late aunt’s diaries shows her she’s not the only one struggling to hide who she really is. But was her aunt truly a Romanov princess? Or is this some elaborate hoax?
With the help of a supremely dorky but undeniably cute local college student named Evan, Jess digs into the century-old mystery.
But soon Jess realizes there’s another, bigger truth waiting to be revealed: Jess Morgan. Because if she’s learned anything from Aunt Anna, it’s that only you can write your own story.
Short and Sweet Review
After helping her mom clean out her great aunts home, Jess finds a trunk full of old diaries unfortunately they’re in Russian. Jess enlists the help of a college student Evan, who agrees to help Jess translate the diaries for a fee. After reading a few of the diaries Evan suspects they could be the diaries of Anastasia Romanov, so did Anastasia survive the assassination attempt and live out the rest of her life as a woman named Anna? The more Jess reads the diaries the more she realizes that she can be who she truly is and write her own story.
Jess Morgan lives a double life she can be herself around her friend Katie, but around her boyfriend and family she’s a different person. It’s hard for Jess to keep everything together especially when she’s with her boyfriend and his friends, you can tell she’s unhappy. This is the side plot in this book. I thought it was predictable in the fact that you can tell at some point she would crack. I did like how Katie would bring Jess back to Earth and make her realize that she wasn’t herself around.
Anyway the big thing here is the diaries. The diaries Jess found in the trunk are in Russian and when Evan reads a few they sound like they could be written by Anastasia Romanov the Grand Duchess who was assassinated with her family. Jess and Evan become immersed in the diaries and the stories that are woven in them. The more they read the more they believe that Jess’s aunt Anna could have been Anastasia.
I did like that we got to read the diary entries along with Jess and Evan and maybe get a glimpse into what life was like for Anna. The more Jess read the entries the more she saw that she’s not the only one having problems hiding who she really is. I think this is when she starts showing who she is and starts to speak up for herself. Also the relationship between Evan and Jess seemed to progress to quickly I thought they could have been better as friends, especially since Jess just broke up with her boyfriend. The ending got dark and depressing really fast and I wasn’t expecting it, but overall it was a good book and I enjoyed the mystery of who was writing the diaries and whether or not Anna is Anastasia.
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