Book Review: The Truth and Other Hidden Things | Lea Geller (blog tour)

I am a fan of Lea Geller’s since I read her first book, Trophy Life. I was so excited for the release of her second novel, The Truth and Other Hidden Things and if I’m honest, I think it is even better than her first book! Clever, funny, heart-warming, and full of depth—this is the sort of book that simultaneously makes me want to grab my popcorn and also leaves me with that great feeling of seeing a group of great characters grow and evolve across the pages.

About the Book

A freshly funny and heartfelt novel about one woman’s secret life, the stories she tells, and the thrill and notoriety of being noticed.

On the same day Bells Walker learns that her IUD has failed, her husband, Harry, is denied tenure at his Manhattan university. So Bells, Harry, their two adolescent children, and her baby bump move to New York’s Hudson Valley, where Harry has landed a job at Dutchess College in the town of Pigkill.

When the farm-to-table utopia Bells envisioned is anything but, she turns to the blogosphere. Under the pen name the County Dutchess, she anonymously dishes about life in Pigkill, detailing the activities of hypercompetitive parents and kombucha-drinking hipsters. Suddenly, Bells has a place to say all the things she’s been secretly thinking about being a wife and mother. As Bells turns the focus of her blog on her new neighbors, her readership continues to grow, but her scandalous posts hit closer to home: she puts Harry’s new job in jeopardy, derails her children’s lives, and risks the one real friendship she’s built.

When Bells uncovers scandals right under her nose, the Dutchess goes viral, and soon everyone is asking, Who is the County Dutchess? Now Bells has to ask herself if it’s worth losing the people closest to her to finally feel noticed by everyone else.

Reflection

I want to talk a bit about Bells, our leading lady. Bells is the sort of character who has that perfect paradox of someone I want to shake at times and who also I cheer for so hard. Bells is 43 and dealing with all of the gray hairs and body changes that come with that. So the last thing she expects is to find out she is pregnant. Isn’t she too old to be pregnant?

Apparently not… but she is (as her doctors point out) at an “advanced maternal age”. As though they needed to tell Bells that, who is already a mother to two teenagers and a few years older than her very attractive and academic husband Harry, taking to dying her hair at home so she can get a few extra chores done while she is chasing a losing battle to cover her gray hairs.

Bells felt so relatable from page one. I instantly cheered her on as she not only dealt with the shocking news of her pregnancy, but also worked to support her husband Harry after he receives the devastating news that he won’t make tenure at his current University post. Bells is the sort of woman who seems to at once know she can do more than she is, but also is so humble about her own strengths and talents.

When Harry gets a job at Duchess College in the town of (and I’m not joking here), Pigkill in upstate New York, Bells is cautiously optimistic about getting to actually live in a place large enough for a family of four (about to be five). But Hudson Valley is not quite the utopia it seems. Instead, it is full of hipsters fleeing the city but bringing their same obsessions with porkpie hats, kombucha, vegan desserts, and strange vegetables to a town that is quickly becoming to expensive for the actual locals to survive in.

Not to mention Bells is dealing with a cadre of younger, yoga-pants moms who judge her for being pregnant at her age and gossip about her behind her back. In an effort to get back to her writing and find an outlet for the ridiculous world she has found herself living in, Bells begins writing an unpaid column for an NYC news outlet and blog. But as her salacious posts begin to get some broader attention, Bells may be in over her head as the truth about her role in the blog may be discovered with consequences for not just her, but Harry and her kids as well.

I absolutely loved reading the blog posts. They are so witty and outrageous, I could picture all of the characters she wrote about. But as with any great book, what starts as harmless fun turns a bit too close to home and Bells herself begins to make some questionable decisions as things go along. But despite her flaws, Bells was still so rootable for me! I truly felt for this woman, who had basically derailed her own life for her husband’s career and her family, only to now find herself judged for that choice from every side.

Full of laugh-out-loud moments, interesting characters, and a story that truly had me on the edge of my seat waiting to see how it all unfolds—The Truth and Other Hidden Things is a fantastic book that I recommend to anyone who likes to see the salacious side of the elite, while also appreciating that no person is truly a caricature and all characters have a story to tell.

Thank you to Suzy Approved Book Tours and Lake Union Publishing for my copy! Opinions are my own.

About The Author

Lea Geller is the author of Trophy Life. A recipient of the 2019 Kathryn Gurfein Writing Fellowship at Sarah Lawrence College, she began her writing career by blogging about her adventures in the trenches of parenting. Lea lives in New York with her husband and children, for whom she frequently wakes up and makes several separate breakfasts. When Lea’s not writing and eavesdropping on her children, she can be found running, gardening, drinking diner coffee, and occasionally teaching middle school English. She is a graduate of Columbia University and Stanford Law School. You can find Lea at www.leageller.com.

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