This book had to work hard to win me over, and darn if it didn’t succeed. I find dishonesty to be deeply triggering. Yet even I was charmed by The Truth According to Ember, a romance in which the main character, Ember, simply cannot seem to tell the truth, creating a cascade of lies, half-truths, and obfuscations ranging from large to small as Ember tries to get ahead in both her personal and professional life. This is better as a story about Ember than it is as a romance, but it has a lot of appeal.

I’m going to let the publisher sum up this plot:

Ember Lee Cardinal has not always been a liar—well, not for anything that counted at least. But her job search is not going well and when her resumé is rejected for the thirty-seventh time, she takes matters into her own hands. She gets “creative” listing her qualifications and answers the ethnicity question on applications with a lie—a half-lie, technically. No one wanted Native American Ember, but white Ember has just landed her dream accounting job on Park Avenue (Oklahoma City, that is).

Accountant Ember thrives in corporate life—and her love life seems to be looking up too: Danuwoa Colson, the IT guy and fellow Native who caught her eye on her first day, seems to actually be interested in her too. Despite her unease over the no-dating policy at work, they start to see each other secretly, which somehow makes it even hotter? But when they’re caught in a compromising position on a work trip, a scheming colleague blackmails Ember, threatening to expose their relationship. As the manipulation continues to grow, so do Ember’s lies. She must make the hard decision to either stay silent or finally tell the truth, which could cost her everything.

This is definitely one of those romantic comedies that could easily play as a horror movie with different background music, if you follow my drift. Ember has, actually, always been a liar based on her own recollections, and she lies about all kinds of things, major and minor, but mostly to either spare people’s feelings or to prevent embarrassment, a tactic which invariably backfires hilariously.

The book works because, despite her many flaws, Ember and her foibles are understandable. Frankly I don’t think she should feel a second of remorse for her embellished resume, which is full of things that are kinda sorta mostly true. I applaud everything she does to finally get a decent job, a job that she works very hard at and is extremely good at. My favorite parts of the book involved her being in the office and being good at her job and learning from her peers.

It also helps that the book is told in first-person narration by Ember. First-person narration has been horribly overused over the last few years, but for this story it’s essential, because it means that the reader always knows the truth and that the reader is forced to emphasize with Ember. We know that there’s no malice behind her dishonesty because we are inside her head. Ember is young (my impression is that she’s in her early twenties) and she’s a little immature, despite having had adult responsibilities for much of her childhood. She doesn’t seem to have had a lot of experience with romance. She’s embarrassed by her financial problems despite them being due to her having done a responsible thing for her family. She’s lived through some family trauma and abandonment, none of which is unpacked much but clearly doesn’t leave her feeling comfortable showing vulnerability. So all of her lying makes sense as a coping and survival mechanism, and she’s such a good-hearted person that her foibles feel forgivable.

The romance aspects of this book don’t work quite as well because Danuwoa is given very little characterization. He’s helpful, he’s hot, he takes care of his sister, that’s what we get. Frankly, I worried about poor Danuwoa who is lied to every five minutes. However, at one point Danuwoa makes a mistake of his own that causes a lot of drama, and he never takes accountability for it. For two people we should root for, Ember and Danuwoa are not always good to each other and that made me less invested in their romance.

However, the real arc in this story is less about the romance and more about Ember’s character growth. I enjoyed the relationships between Ember and her roommate, her Auntie, and her brother, as well as the depictions of life both on the Chickasaw Nation reservation where Ember grew up and Oklahoma City where she works for most of the book.

I liked it that Ember faced serious consequences for actions but was able to learn a new approach and still be successful. However, I thought that things between her and Danuwoa were resolved far too easily. Ember lies to Danuwoa frequently. Lies are a no-deal issue for me, and as Danuwoa became increasingly confused he had my sympathy. Poor Danuwoa doesn’t know he’s in a rom-com. For all he can tell, he’s in a psychological thriller.

So as much as I wanted him and Ember to be happy together, I also wanted him to run as far away from Ember as possible and not come back. Meanwhile, as I mentioned Danuwoa never takes accountability for one of his own major missteps and Ember doesn’t call him out on it. I also thought that both Ember and her brother Sage had enough hurt feelings and trauma between the two of them to merit at least one more long conversation before fully reconciling. Essentially I thought that all of the characters needed to have a lot of therapy before being in relationships with anybody.

Overall, this is a fun screwball comedy. I really enjoyed the representation of a Chickasaw woman and the barriers she faces to improving her life. As exasperated as I constantly was with Ember, I wanted her to thrive as the smart, hard-working woman that she clearly is, and for the most part I was happy with how her story was resolved. The romance was mainly a catalyst for Ember’s growth (thank you, SB Sarah for providing the perfect phrase!) (You’re welcome!) and although I had some issues with this story, I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t mind-blowing – it was fine.

However, I loved how richly different worlds were described, from Ember’s Auntie’s kitchen and the family and community that the kitchen represents, to the messy apartment of Ember and her roomie as two single young women, and the cubicles where Ember works in Oklahoma City. I am a reader who struggles mightily when one of the major plot points is dishonesty, but I found this to be a fun, heartfelt story with a lot to say.