The Truth According to Ember is out now! Thank you to the publisher for the ARC.

I was very excited to dig into this romcom from Danica Nava – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a traditionally published contemporary romcom from a Native author with two Native main characters. 

Ember is our main character, she’s working at a bowling alley cleaning toilets and serving nachos, desperate to get a job as an accountant but no one wants to hire her.

She makes a few creative adjustments to her resume, which leads to a new career based on a bunch of lies. She starts at her new office and runs into Danuwoa, the IT guy who she’s immediately attracted to but the office has a no-dating policy so the two start off as just friends which turns into more, though she has to keep lying to him to uphold her original lies.

I love that we get a book about Native joy and love. I enjoyed the exploration of microaggressions Native people face in a mostly white workforce, though not pleasant to read, it is so important.   

I’m not always a fan of books where the central plot is based on lies, and there were certainly times where I just wished Ember would be honest. So many of her lies were pointless, but I did understand the desperation that led to the first lie and how it can easily snowball from there. I spent most of the time worrying about when the other shoe would drop and all her lies would be found out (because they always are!)

Overall though it was a cute romcom from a fresh new voice and I love that I got to read a different perspective than I ever h