Let the Games Begin

The Lying Game

Written by: Sara Shepard

Released: December 7, 2010 by HarperTeen

Summary: I had a life anyone would kill for.

Then someone did.

The worst part of being dead is that there’s nothing left to live for. No more kisses. No more secrets. No more gossip. It’s enough to kill a girl all over again. But I’m about to get something no one else does—an encore performance, thanks to Emma, the long-lost twin sister I never even got to meet.

Now Emma’s desperate to know what happened to me. And the only way to figure it out is to be me—to slip into my old life and piece it all together. But can she laugh at inside jokes with my best friends? Convince my boyfriend she’s the girl he fell in love with? Pretend to be a happy, carefree daughter when she hugs my parents good night? And can she keep up the charade, even after she realizes my murderer is watching her every move?

From Sara Shepard, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Pretty Little Liars books, comes a riveting new series about secrets, lies, and killer consequences.

Let the lying game begin.

First off, if you’re not into slightly complicate narratives, this may not be the book for you. I know that it took me a chapter or two to feel at ease with the duo-narrative between Sutton and Emma and every time that I stopped reading, the next time I picked the book back up it took me a page or two.

Now on to the real review.

I loved this book. Seriously, Sara Shepard has this way with words and a story line that blows my mind. I have read mysteries before that deal with twins (long-lost or otherwise), but I’ve never read one quite like this. It’s very much like Pretty Little Liars in the way that you can never fully think through who may be the killer (or if there’s more than one) but the similarities from there are just from the fact that it’s the same author.

I loved how Sutton was present and shared the narrative with Emma as both were trying to piece together what happened. Though a little confusing at times, how they shared the story added so much more dimension to both characters. Plus, it was interesting to see Sutton almost through her own eyes as well as through Emma’s as Emma integrated herself within Sutton’s life. And Sutton’s memories represented as flashbacks add to the mystery and drama as little pieces of her life are explained to the reader but not Emma.

I wish that there was more that I could say in this review, but this is one of those books that you definitely don’t want to go into with spoilers in your head. I can’t wait to see where this series leads and I really can’t wait to read the next book in the series Never Have I Ever which comes out April 8th this year. I give this a 9/10.