If I Tell You the Truth
Published January 19th 2021 by HarperCollins, Hardcover 464 pages
Told in prose, poetry, and illustration, this heartrending story weaves Kiran’s and Sahaara’s timelines together, showing a teenage Kiran and, later, her high school–aged daughter, Sahaara.
Kiran is a young Punjabi Sikh woman who becomes pregnant after being sexually assaulted by her fiancé’s brother. When her fiancé and family don’t believe her, she flees her home in India to Canada, where she plans to raise the child as a single mother. For Kiran, living undocumented means constant anxiety over finances, work, safety, and whether she’ll be deported back to the dangers that await her in Punjab.
Eighteen years later, Kiran’s daughter, Sahaara, is desperate to help her mother, who has been arrested and is facing deportation. In the aftermath, Kiran reveals the truth about Sahaara’s conception. Horrified, Sahaara encourages Kiran to speak out against the man who raped her—who’s now a popular political figure in Punjab. Sahaara must find the best way to support her mother while also dealing with the revelation about her parents.
User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
BOOKSTAGRAM | BOOK BLOG | AMAZON⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
I struggled with rating this book. I always feel books that touch upon highly sensitive topics need to be 5⭐️ because, though I’ve never (thankfully) experienced these things I know many people who have and it changed their lives immensely.
This book has many trigger warnings, which the author dedicates a page of listing them to warn the reader prior to jumping in.
This book is half novel half poetry and it is really amazing. I love the set up and it breaks up some of the heavier topics. It’s a story about a girl Kiran who leaves Punjab to Canada to study Biology at college after she is sexually assaulted and impregnated by her rapist.
It goes into detail about how this young girl survived all odds, raised her daughter and lived in Canada undocumented for 20+ years. Then as you go we start to change perspectives to Kirans daughter Sahaara and what it is like growing up worrying about her undocumented mom and navigating school and love and college.
So many heartbreaks and triumphs in this book. I read it in less than 24 hours.
Also there’s a cute love story that unfolds but we never really know the outcome. Also the ending, wasn’t what I was hoping for but I mean, this would be real life and things just don’t change overnight.
This was a real eye opening book for me to read about immigrants, rape, hope, deceit, friendship, fear & love.
Rating: really liked it
Originally published on The Nerd Daily | Review by Beth Mowbray
Just over a year after her debut novel, When You Ask Me Where I’m Going, captivated readers, Jasmin Kaur is releasing her sophomore work, If I Tell You the Truth. With a similarly unique format, Kaur weaves together prose, poetry, and illustrations to bring readers back to the lives of the characters from her first book, while also expanding the bounds of their world and of her storytelling.
If I Tell You the Truth is the powerful tale of a mother and daughter pair, Kiran and Sahaara, which alternates between each of their viewpoints. The basic premise is this: Kiran has fled her home in India after being sexually assaulted by her fiance’s brother, leading to a pregnancy for which she is shamed by her family. She begins to attend university in Canada as previously planned; but after Sahaara is born, and her family cuts ties with her, it becomes more and more difficult to attend school while working to support herself and her child.
Read the FULL REVIEW on The Nerd Daily
Rating: really liked it
An emotional story soaked in truth and told through a mix of prose and poetry, it brings forward the highly realistic yet under-explored experiences of immigration, the underlying horror of every day while the fear of deportation is a sword dangling above one's neck, the unneeded gender-restricted expectations set for a daughter by her family, the happiness of bringing a new life to this world being drenched in the pain of being assaulted, the trauma that transcends generation, and the overall beauty of finding trust and support in a friend.
↣ listened to the audiobook on scribd ↢
Rating: really liked it
More thoughts will be shared on my Youtube channel! Subscribe to my channel!*turns on megaphone* HELLO HELLO. I think I may have found another favorite author who writes novels in verse and prose and I need you all to READ Jasmin Kaur's If I Tell You the Truth!!! Not a lot of you have read this book and we need to change that.
I want to begin by applauding the author for adding trigger warnings before the story started. I'm a firm believer in having trigger content warnings in books and NO, I don't consider them as spoilers.
I listened to the audiobook and it was also narrated by Jasmin Kaur and it was PHENOMENAL! I highly suggest picking the audiobook up when you read this book.
- The story is told in two POVs: Kiran Kaur and her daughter Sahaara Kaur. Kiran is a victim of sexual assault that ended getting her pregnant. Afraid for her and her daughter's safety, she fled to Canada and entered college. When the person she most expects to believe what she's been through only blames her and is more worried about their family's image, Kira decided to take this head-on alone. Balancing her studies and going through her pregnancy have placed her student visa on the line.
- It was maddening and heart-wrenching to read the story as Kiran navigates the world of parenthood and being the victim of rape when the odds are systemically against her as a Punjab woman.
The book touches upon prejudice against women of color, being a victim of sexual assault AND victim-blaming, how justice is seldom and hard to find for marginalized people (women, especially), how immigration isn't always a black or white thing, and surviving a world full of hatred, prejudice, and lies takes a whole lot of courage and bravery.
It's so hard to choose a SINGLE favorite quote because I might as well have highlighted the whole book because of how amazing it is. Every line either hurts or makes me pine for the character or both at the same time. But here's one:
"The word no was an art form foreign to me. I mean, I'd always loved the idea of saying no, but nothing made my skin crawl like the thought of disappointing people."CONCLUSION: I recommend this to everyone, especially fans of Elizabeth Acevedo's works!Trigger/Content Warning: sexual assault, rape, abortion, teenage pregnancy, police brutality, immigrant trauma, victim-blaming, alcoholism, depression, anxiety, death of a parent
Rating: really liked it
[ sexual assault, police brutality, immigrant trauma, victim-blaming, domestic violence, alcoholism, depression, anxiety** (hide spoiler)]
Rating: really liked it
Definitely a read that will stay with me
Rating: really liked it
4.5⭐️An incredible read, made all the more powerful through the creative combination of prose, poetry and illustrations.
This book does a terrific job in telling the story of so many profiles (sexual assault survivors, undocumented immigrants, single parents, teen mothers) and the obstacles/stigma that they face, and giving them a voice.
Kiran and Sahaara are characters you'll want to root for. Their strength, bravery, courage and spirit left me wowed. Fictional characters they might be, but their experiences are all too real.
✨"This life has taught me that sometimes, the most beautiful humans find themselves in painful situations. That doesn't mean they're not worth fighting for."
✨"It is an act of bravery to live through hell and run from it when we have been made to believe that running is far more dangerous than staying."
✨"This world makes us feel like our stories begin and end with men — the ones who want us or don't want us or hurt us or love us. But if I've learned anything, it's that happiness doesn't need to hinge on the boy you end up with. You can choose yourself, too."
Rating: really liked it
To anyone who's planning to read this book, I'd recommend taking the trigger warnings at the beginning of the book very seriously.
Everyone who read Jasmin Kaur's first book 'When you ask me where I'm going' already knows enough about Kiran and Sahaara's story to know what the topic is about. I'm not gonna repeat the plot of the story, I only want to talk about how I feel about this novel in general. I want to start with this quote from the book...
"I hand her the letter, my excitement now stained with fear. Within this envelope could simply be a request for more documents. Or a rejection. Or an approval. Mom grasps the letter in both hands, her face a kaleidoscopic phulkari of emotion."
First off all, Jasmin Kaur's writing style and choice of words left me speechless. She's definitely one of my favourite writers at the moment.
TW: mentions of sexual assault
I don't think anyone who hasn't experienced any kind of sexual assault themself can even imagine what it's like to have to deal with this kind of trauma. Jasmin Kaur tells the story of the pregnant Punjabi girl Kiran Kaur who has been raped and flees to Canada after being abandoned by her own mother who accuses her of lying about the assault. While we find out what Kiran goes through mentally and physically through the years after this incident, the novel tells the story of how she tries to bring up her Canadian born daughter Sahaara in a foreign country without any legal documents.
We learn a lot about Sahaara and about how she deals with her own emotions as a teenager brought up by an undocumented mother who can't go back to India.
We get to read from the perspective of two women. One who has experienced abuse and a young woman who is trying desperately to be an ally to her mother who has experienced abuse. Their lives are constantly filled with anxiety, worry and fear and I was impressed by how well the author managed to put all these emotions into words.
I think this story and the characters' thoughts make it easier to understand the impact the assault has on both of the main characters. On one side we have Kiran, who manages to speak up about her trauma after almost 19 years. But the flashbacks are only a small part of the aftermath of speaking about her assault. She's confused, struggling with the truth and reliving the whole incident in her head all over again. But a trauma such as the one she's experienced can't be forgotten.
On the other side we have Sahaara, who is confused about her mother's boundaries. It's hard for her to understand when and how much her mother should be confronted with this incident from the past. She tries to help her mother to get revenge and speak up about the assault publicly, to prevent her abuser from assaulting more women.
I think everyone will read this story from a different perspective and point of view. There are a lot of messages coming from this novel and to be honest, it's a lot to take in.
I particularly liked the focus on how Sahaara slowly learns how to be an ally to her mother:
"to be an effective ally to survivors of sexual assault you need to be prepared to listen more than you speak.
to push your own ideas of healing or justice onto a survivor may be to traumatize them again. remember that they have been through a storm that has likely felt uncontrollable, outside of their power to contain."
I recommend this book to anyone who has someone in their life who has experienced sexual assault and anyone who wants to learn how to be an effective ally to survivors. It's a start to learn what survivors have to go through even years after their assault.
I'd also recommend it to survivors but ONLY if the topic and the description of certain emotions doesn't trigger them. It might make them feel less lonely, especially when they don't have someone around them who has experienced something similar and can relate to them.
Rating: really liked it
Wow. This book has left me utterly speechless. I know that this work will sit with me for a lifetime. As a 2nd generation South Asian immigrant there were many things in this book that hit extremely close to home, especially in the aspect of family relationships and friendships. I felt deeply connected to each of the people in this collection and my heart both ached and was so proud reading the words on every page. This book should be one every single person needs to read in their life. It talks about experiences that real immigrant families go through and the struggles of coming to a new country and setting up a new life. We always hear on the news of people getting deported and being forced to leave the US, sometimes when this is the only country and home they've ever known. This book is raw and dives into these topics fearlessly and it has educated me, made me a more aware and compassionate individual. This book stands for feminism and promoting woman's ability's to make their own choices about their body. This book is an embodiment of things that are wrong in the world that we as the general population need to know about because ignorance does not help people in these situations. Genuinely, one of the best books of this year. I don't have enough words to praise this work.
Rating: really liked it
This is a beautiful, important book. It is written in a combination of poetry and prose and shorts perspective but it does so organically and with ease. The reader is instant wrapped into the lives of these women. The book tackles issues that are too often ignored, the plight of abused women in India and of the too often silenced immigrant population in Canada. I read much about undocumented immigrants in the US but this is the first time I’ve seen it from a Canadian perspective.
Rating: really liked it
2021 why?? 😭
Rating: really liked it
I'm not sure why I couldn't enjoy this like the first one, I really wanted to love it too. The first one was really good but this one I found a few that I could like.
Rating: really liked it
Blend of prose and poetry. Very emotional.
Rating: really liked it
Powerful piece 🤗
Rating: really liked it
Oh my god. Where do I even start? Jasmin Kaur is an amazing story teller. The story has so many layers, but it's all woven together with so much care. The pacing, the prose, the details. Just everything! There were moments that had me very emotional but I held it together and then on the last page, I found big fat tears streaming down my face. This is honestly, such a beautiful book.
