Truth IsReview posted September 26, 2025.
Amulet Books, 2025. 474 pages.
Review written September 23, 2025, from an Advance Reader Copy signed by the author.
Starred Review
2025 National Book Award for Young People's Literature Longlist
I'm definitely biased about this book, since it came with a hug! Hannah Sawyerr was one of the debut authors who was a Morris Award Finalist the year I was on the Morris committee, and we got to have lunch with the authors after the award ceremony. So when I was in line at ALA Annual Conference this year to get this Advance Reader Copy, Hannah recognized me at once and gave me a hug! It had me smiling all day because she is a genuinely great author, and being on the Morris feels like we're discovering authors - even though the Walter Award committee and the Cybils committee also recognized her first book, All the Fighting Parts.
So I was thrilled when her second book showed up on the National Book Award Longlist. I had just gotten around (finally) to reading the ARC. It shows that I may be biased, but I am certainly not wrong in thinking that her writing is good!
Truth Is is about a girl named Truth Bangura who is a slam poet in Philadelphia, starting her Senior year, and trying to decide what to do after she graduates.
And then she discovers she's pregnant by her ex-boyfriend. She wrestles with the decision, but chooses an abortion. That brings consequences especially in her relationship with her best friend. But it doesn't bring regret.
Truth is hiding a lot of things from her mother, including her pregnancy and abortion, but also her participation on the slam poetry team. So when her performance of a poem goes viral - about the abortion and about how she's scared to tell her mother - her mother is not happy.
I love the Author's Note at the front of the Advance Reader Copy (I hope it will be in the finished book!), especially this part:
Truth Is is a pro-choice novel in every sense of the phrase. Truth's choice to move forward with an abortion is made early on in the novel, and the majority of the novel focuses on her life and her choices after the abortion. My intention behind this was always to show readers that life continues after big decisions.
For young people who decide to read Truth Is, it is important to me that you know that, like Truth's poetry, life is filled with many deliberate choices and a whole lot of revision. A lot of questions and heartbreak. But a lot of gain and victories too. You have the power to make new decisions every day and can always choose to revise and write a new story.
Hannah Sawyerr beautifully pulls off this theme, as besides navigating her senior year and her relationships, Truth is learning to be a slam poet. We see the three poems Truth ends up taking to the slam poetry competition at the end of the year - and how Truth revises them along the way.
The book takes us through three trimesters of the school year, and Truth's choice at the end about what she should do next. Like All the Fighting Parts, this story is told with power and beauty.