Book Review: Necessary Lies

Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: September 3, 2013
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There is a prequel to this book called The First Lie, available on e-book for 99 cents. It’s only 39 pages long. I went ahead and bought it since I didn’t have to pay for Necessary Lies but I going to say it – this trend of super short prequels on ebooks really annoys me. It seems like it’s just a way to get one or two more dollars out of the person buying the book. Thirty-nine extra pages could have easily been included in Necessary Lies, having a separate prequel is ridiculous. But I guess I’m a sucker because I bought it even though I was mad about it!

Anyway, enough ranting! On to my review of Necessary Lies. First, the publisher’s description:

After losing her parents, fifteen-year-old Ivy Hart is left to care for her grandmother, older sister and nephew as tenants on a small tobacco farm.  As she struggles with her grandmother’s aging, her sister’s mental illness and her own epilepsy, she realizes they might need more than she can give.

When Jane Forrester takes a position as Grace County’s newest social worker, she doesn’t realize just how much her help is needed.  She quickly becomes emotionally invested in her clients’ lives, causing tension with her boss and her new husband.  But as Jane is drawn in by the Hart women, she begins to discover the secrets of the small farm—secrets much darker than she would have guessed.  Soon, she must decide whether to take drastic action to help them, or risk losing the battle against everything she believes is wrong.

Set in rural Grace County, North Carolina in a time of state-mandated sterilizations and racial tension, Necessary Lies tells the story of these two young women, seemingly worlds apart, but both haunted by tragedy.  Jane and Ivy are thrown together and must ask themselves: how can you know what you believe is right, when everyone is telling you it’s wrong?

Even though Necessary Lies is a work of fiction, it’s an accurate account of the way the Eugenics Sterilization Program worked in North Carolina. I was shocked to learn that this barbaric program was in place up in until 1974. The characters in Grace county are typical of the kind of people who were affected by this horrifying program.

I appreciated Jane’s struggle with the program, on the one hand wanting to be a good social worker, on the other hand not knowing if following the rules actually made her a good social worker. This book was also an eye-opening look of what it was like to be a woman in the 1960s. Jane’s doctor won’t prescribe her birth control pills without her husband’s permission!

This book also did a good job of portraying the cycle of rural poverty and just how hard it to break as well. The author made me feel deep sympathy for Ivy and her family.

This book was a compelling story with a couple of very surprising plot twists. It was extremely well-researched as well. Necessary Lies would be an excellent book club pick; you will want to discuss this book with somebody after you read it, if only to vent your frustration with North Carolina during this time period. This is the first book I’ve read by Diane Chamberlain and I’m looking forward to reading more by her. I highly recommend Necessary Lies.

(I received this book courtesy of the Amazon Vine program.)