Draft:It Rhymes With Truth

It Rhymes With Truth is a tragicomical coming of age novel by Rich Miller that was published in 2024. The novel is about an unnamed 8-and-a-half-year-old homeless boy who is taken in by an elderly woman named Ruth. She lives in a retirement home and hides the boy there during the events of the novel. The book is narrated by the boy at age 18, looking back on a decade of life with Ruth.

Reception
It Rhymes With Truth has been praised in advanced reviews of the novel. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews said “Miller’s deeply felt tale illustrates how life’s greatest challenges always arrive before we’re ready for them, and how they shape us into the people we become….A masterfully controlled tear-jerker of a novel about found family.”

BookLife/Publisher’s Weekly named it an Editor’s Choice book, saying, “Miller’s storytelling is charming and contemplative... subtly showcasing the defensive psyche of a child shaped by a rough childhood. A vital, moving novel.”

In a starred review, Blue Ink Reviews called it, “[A] thoroughly engaging novel—by turns, funny, thoughtful, sweet, and sad…. This book is wonderfully fresh, thanks to the author’s breezy style incorporating song lyrics, drawings, and funny footnotes….The book’s conclusion is heart-wrenching as the pieces of the story fall into place”