The Honest Truth by Dan Gemeinhart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This one is definitely for middle school. While teachers don’t have to worry about drugs, sex, or language with this one, they do have to consider potential trigger warnings because the main character is sick and is struggling to figure out how he wants to live out the rest of his life. He is keenly aware of time and decides to go out on his own to climb a mountain. Mark is a clever character with a lot of attitude and anger but with a soft side that we reveals as he describes his dog, Beau, and shares stories about the few characters he met along the way.
Gemeinhart has a unique strategy for telling the story; he has half chapters. The first part is told by Mark, and then the second is told in third person, so we get a glimpse of what is going on back home as he is making his way to the mountain. In these half chapters, we see that the story is about family, friendship, sickness, dying, and trying to honor the promises that we make to others but especially the promises we make to ourselves.