Cordelia talks at length to other people, a tactic that allows each character to be fully developed. Set in Alaska where the author lives, this novel is told through Cordelia’s poetry and her emails and texts to other characters. On a trip to a young poets’ conference in Seattle, Cordelia becomes rebellious, drinking and sneaking off, and she ropes Kodiak into helping her track down her father. When work and their project begins and the test reveals that the father she has always known is not her biological father, Cordelia is thrown into emotional turmoil. Recently, Kodiak’s life has been troubled: After finding out that a classmate he impregnated was having an abortion, he drunkenly crashed his mother’s car. Cordelia teams up with Kodiak, who’s a friend, crush, and fellow poet. Now she isn't sure of anything-not the mother who lied, the man she calls Dad, or the girl staring back at her in the mirror.Gr 8 Up–High schooler Cordelia plans to coast through her senior project, copying her older sister’s idea of taking an ancestry test through GeneQuest, and adding her own spin by exploring the results through her poetry.

All she needs to do is mail in her DNA sample, write about her ancestry results, and get that easy A.īut when Cordelia's GeneQuest results reveal that her father is not the person she thought he was, but a stranger who lives thousands of miles away, her entire world shatters. And getting partnered with her longtime crush, Kodiak Jones, is icing on the cake. While her peers stressed, Cordelia planned to use the same trace-your-roots genealogy idea her older sister used years prior. Seventeen-year-old Cordelia Koenig intended to breeze through her senior project. Told through a series of poems, text messages, and emails, this contemporary YA is perfect for fans of Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin. 'A heart-wrenching quest for identity every YA reader will relate to, and a deep dive into the meaning of family.' -Ellen Hopkins, #1 New York Times bestselling authorĭebut author Dante Medema explores the emotional fallout after a teenage girl discovers she is the product of an affair.

The Truth Project by Dante Medema