Nothing But The Truth By Philip Malloy

In Nothing But the Truth there is one thing that stood out to me throughout the entire book. The whole book is full of lies. Philip Malloy tells lies about everything and to everyone. He lies to his parents, the principal, and even to a reporter that is interviewing him. Throughout the book we continue to see the lies play out until the very end of the book when Philip finally decides to tell the truth. At the beginning of the book we find out that Philip is a great athlete and the star of the track team. However, when his grade in English stops him from being on the team, Philip starts making up lies to cover it up instead of just telling the truth. While having a conversation with his father he tells him that he doesn’t want to try out for the track team. He says, “I, ah…was thinking I wouldn’t try out” (Nothing 29). His dad gets visibly upset about the situation and Philip responds and says, “Just because you did it doesn’t mean I have to” (Nothing 29). Although Philip tried to make it about his dad forcing him to run, that really wasn’t the case at all. He wasn’t on the track team because

In order to make the situation sound better Philip tells his parents that no one likes Miss Narwin. Philip’s dad asks him to explain why he thinks that Miss Narwin has it out for him. He responds, “I don’t know. Nobody likes her. People don’t do well in her classes. Except her favorites” (Nothing 28). However, this was a lie. In fact, many children in the book stand up for Miss Narwin. Allison, the girl that Philip has a crush on says to Philip, “I just want you to know that I think what you did was really mean. Narwin is one of the bet teachers. All the kids say so. It’s really embarrassing” (Nothing 148). Philip knows that when he tells his parents that no one likes Miss Narwin that he is lying. In fact, he even says, “Things stink. And it’s all so unfair. Nobody takes my side. They all think Narwin’s great” (Nothing