The Lying Game by Sara Shepard

Inside Flap:
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?

Narrator:                                                                                                                  307 Pages

This story is told from one of the few forms of first person that I like: A character telling the story of someone else, yet refering to themselves as "I" once in a while. Sutton, the narrator, is dead (the cause of which is a key element in the story) and is attached to her living sister twin Emma and tells Emma's story, having new ghostly insight on a girl she had never before met, as such.

What I liked:
What I love, and continue to love, about Sara Shepard's books (besides their unique plots and constant mystery and unpredictability) is her writing. It's quick and to the point, yet dwells in the lovely land of description just long enough for visuals to bloom in your head. What I also adore is her attention to detail -including, but not limited to, the precise designer labels attached to many articles of clothing and room decor that the characters possess. Thus, SHOWING the characters wealth instead of TELLING the reader about it
.
"She had an expensive purse" as opposed to "she had a Gucci purse"
"She was rich" or "She owned a purple porche and ten pairs of pink prada pumps."
(Note that none of these are quotes from the text)

I devoured the whole dead-twin-watches-as-living-twin-takes-over-her-life thing. A lot. What makes this even greater is that it's believable. There's no throw-twin-into-other-twin's-life-and-watch-as-a-series-of-hilarious-yet-unrealistic-events-occur going on here. The characters do and act -for the most part- just like I would if I were thrown into the same situation.

I love Sara Shephard's characters. They are so realistic and relatable. I can see Emma, Sutton, and the rest of the players in this novel being real people, and I sympathise and feel for them. Ethan is the kind of awkward-esque guy that I LOVE.

The minute amount of romance that there was in this book was NOT RUSHED AND THEREFORE MAKES MY HEART FLUTTER, which is just too fantastic for words.

The mystery and intrigue in this book -though a bit slow in the beggining- really speeds up and the end. I actually ordered the next book -Never Have I Ever- the moment I read the last word. (Cheers for impulsive book buying!)

What I didn't like:
The pacing. This book starts a bit fast, then slows, then speeds up, then returns to an average speed. This only became an issue when I had to force myself to read a few of the middle chapters, and then felt like way too much was happening at once.

As I said earlier, the book really gets interesting near the end -remaining a bit obsolete in the middle. A few odd events occur, as well, that I had to reread at least once because I was not sure if they actually happened, or were just some kind of weird dream.

All in all, The Lying Game by Sara Shepard is definitely a book I would recommend. It is a story full of twists that I definitely did not see a-comin, and an ending that leaces a plethora of unanswered questions, making the enxt book, Never Have I Ever, I definite must-have.

This book does contain some inferred sexual content, mild language, and some teen alcohol/drug use.

I give this book a 4.5/5 or a Lily

PS: If you are a fan of the TV show, as I am, just know that it is NOTHING LIKE THE BOOK AT ALL. LIKE, AT ALL.