The Lying Game is a series I keep
listening to more out of boredom than anything else. People say that
life is too short to read bad books when there are so many good ones
out there but I've had trouble finding any- good ones I mean. This
series is okay. Which is more
than I can say for most other YA books I've tried reading or
listening to lately so this one stays. Which isn't to say it doesn't
make me too nauseous to listen to while running though because it
does, like totally bi-otch.
I've
listened to the first four books and apparently there are two more.
There is probably enough interesting stuff here for one book. I know
other readers felt this way about Sara Shepard's other series- Pretty
Little Liars, too but to me she
throws in enough interesting side stories to make that series
entertaining. Here, not so much, unless you find school dances,
dates, and endless conversations with her friends about which one is
the bi-otch-iest entertaining.
The
series is about a foster teen named Emma who discovers she has a long
lost twin- Sutton. She arranges to meet her, only to find out when
she arrives in her sister's town that Sutton has been murdered and
the killer has orchestrated for Emma to take over her life.
It is
a jarring narrative experience. It is told in the third person
through the eyes of Emma who inexplicably hands off to the ghost of
Sutton who talks in the first person and doesn't remember anything
about her life but can somehow read Emma's mind. There is no warning
when this transition is about to happen and it can take a few
paragraphs to sort out who is talking. Sutton is a total bore as a
ghost, mostly just whining about how Emma judges her, and mooning
over dreamy guys, and then conveniently remembering pieces of her
life (but omitting the most important parts) when it is convenient to
the plot.
Sutton's
friends are very one dimensional- they are bi-otches, as they like to
say every other page or so. Even though they get a little back story
as the series goes on they are really hard to relate to or like any
of them. Emma has a little more depth but the depiction of all foster
parents through her eyes as negligent a-holes who just use their
foster kids to get government checks was off putting to say the
least. I'm sure some of them are insufferable but it is a really
tough job being a foster parent and there are much easier ways to get
money if that's all you're after. Why is it that Emma didn't even
have one foster parent that was a decent human being?
Each
book centers around one “suspect” that Emma is 100% positive
killed Sutton until about ¾ of the way through when -oh my gosh!
they didn't kill Sutton! What a surprise!
The
books would be more interesting if they focused more on the murder
mystery and less on what everyone is wearing.
I
kept listening because I needed something to entertain me at work and
it passes, barely. Something interesting finally happened at the end
of the fourth book. As in, actually interesting and unexpected. This
is the kind of twist that Pretty Little Liars is full of. Is it too
late to save the series though? I guess I will check out the next two
books, or the last one at least. Let's just hope they don't extend
the series again!
