Author: Sara Shepard
Series: The Lying Game #1
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: December 7, 2010
Pages: 307
From Goodreads:
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?
***
When I heard Sara Shepard was coming out with a new series, I was super excited. I am a HUGE fan of the Pretty Little Liars TV show and enjoyed the books as well. They both are total guilty pleasures – rich, mean girls who have such “awful” lives and have nothing better to do than gossip, cheat, lie, steal, etc. And with the first book in the new series, The Lying Game, Shepard completely delivered on those topics.I devoured this book in four hours flat. It was such a fast read and I was kind of shocked I breezed through it so fast. I did struggle at the beginning with the narration as I couldn’t figure out who exactly was speaking – Sutton or Emma. But once I got that down, it was smooth sailing from there.
A couple of themes were running through my head while I read the book. The first, and most pronounced, was how totally similar it was to Pretty Little Liars. Not even just a few things – a lot of things. This isn’t necessarily negative or bad, just something I noticed. And the second was how MEAN these girls were!! They go way beyond teasing or name-calling and are just flat-out vindictive, rude, awful girls. One of the pranks they pull in the book was just so incredibly awful that it made me physically cringe.
One issue I had with the characters was how Emma just jumped into Sutton’s life and no one realizes she’s an imposter. I would hope that my parents would be quick enough to realize if someone started impersonating me. Perhaps in the second book, Never Have I Ever, people who were close to Sutton will wake up and realize what’s going on.
Despite the huge similarities between this book and PLL, I still enjoyed it and look forward to reading the next one in the series that will be released in April 2011.
I received a digital ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and HarperTeen.
Rating:
Love the honesty of your review, Tara! I've been wanting to read this one because I loved PLL, but I was concerned about it being too similar...even the premise is oddly similar, eh? Either way, glad it was a quick read! :)
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this one as well, though having not read PLL prior to this series probably made it a bit more of an interesting read since I wasn't noticing any similarities. I would have thought a couple people might have noticed she wasn't Sutton, but then I just kept thinking some of them might be in on it so no one's saying anything. You wrote a lovely, balanced review with the things you liked and didn't like, I enjoyed reading your thoughts!
ReplyDeleteI pretty much had the same thoughts here: How could no one notice that Emma is not Sutton? And it IS really similar to PLL. But I'm still going to be reading when this book's sequel comes out.
ReplyDeleteI also got this from NetGalley for review a few months ago. I read it in practically one sitting and can't wait for Never Have I Ever. I also have four more books to read in the PLL series. Are you ready for January 3rd? :-)
ReplyDeleteI loved this book and flew through PLL too! I've also noticed that sara must really like twins! For PLL, Alison and Courtney. For TLG, Emma and Sutton! AT first when i found out she wrote a new book and it was about twins i must of thought it might be a little similar. BTW, I loved your review.
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