Review of “The Lying Game”

“At least she had a clear picture of what the Lying Game was now: Girl Scouts for psychopaths.”

Emma has lived in foster homes her whole life, but when she finds a video online that depicts a girl who looks exactly like her being killed, she searches for her long-lost twin. After seemingly being lured to Tucson by her twin, Sutton Mercer, Emma finds out that she got the raw end of the deal. Sutton grew up with everything a girl could ask for: parents, a sister, popular friends, a boyfriend, and anything monetary her heart desired. Except Sutton is dead, so Emma assumes Sutton’s identity. When Emma tries to explain what is going on no one believes her. No one, that is, but Sutton’s killer. In order to keep herself from being the next, dead sister, Emma has to play along with The Lying Game until she can solve the mystery of what happened to Sutton.
First off, before anyone starts harassing me over a review (seriously, that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of – book bloggers shouldn’t have to deal with that stuff!) I seriously love Sara Shepard.  I read the first four books of Pretty Little Liars (which I still need to review here) and I was hooked immediately. When I picked this book up, I was really intrigued by the first page, so I was excited to begin reading it. However, like some of the other reviews I’ve read, I just didn’t get into it as much as I did with PLL.
Some people said they didn’t like the point of view that went between Emma in third person to Sutton in first person. I understood that Shepard was trying something new and that was fine but, I agree, I don’t think it did much for the story. If there had been small chapters here and there told in Sutton’s point of view (as does A. in PLL) we would have gotten the gist that Sutton is dead and she’s watching all of this as a ghost.
While the story line sounds innovative and interesting in theory, it just wasn’t. I got really bored of it quickly. It picked up in the middle when Emma was starting to figure things out and the killer had come back to threaten her. But there was just too much that I couldn’t believe about the whole situation to make me like any of the characters.
I agree with whomever said “Why couldn’t Emma just call someone from her hometown who would vouch for her?” I mean, technically, she is still not 18 so she’s under child protective custody until her birthday at the end of the book. Also, if Emma has been dirt poor and without a world of privilege, wouldn’t she be way more impressed with the gadgets and designer clothes she has? Plus, and I mentioned this on Twitter, how does she know to go to Trader Joe’s to buy Brie? And why would she be irritated with an old woman who holds up the line by paying with a check? If she’s getting into her diva role now that she’s assumed Sutton’s identity, I get that, but she wouldn’t just know these kind of things off-hand if she’s been in poverty the last 15+ years.
And Becky. So that’s their mother but Sutton never knew her but Emma lived with her? I guess that’s part of the mystery too.
One other small thing: Sutton? Is this a hip thing, to name kids after random London boroughs? I kept wanting to call her Mutton Surfer. I get that she’s a spoiled little rich girl who loves to pull deadly pranks on people. She gets her car impounded and she has a police record but she’s still living a charmed life. I can almost understand that but I’m not rich and I don’t shop for Brie at Trader Joe’s so I’m not sure.
Anyway, I doubt I’ll read anymore of the books, but I didn’t realize they’d made a TV show for it, so I can look for that next month.
All in all, it’s not a terrible book at all, I just wasn’t overall thrilled with it. If it weren’t for Shepard’s writing style, it wouldn’t have been interesting at all. Most teen readers would probably be into it since the mystery story is pretty intriguing. I’m just not sure they’ll love it as much a PLL. I do, however, give Shepard massive props for starting a totally different project though. As she said in the acknowledgements, it is really hard to start a new series.
My rating: (3/5)

Friday Reads - The Lying Game

I decided to create a Friday Reads section to the blog so that it's used during the times I'm still getting around to the actual book reviews.

This Friday I'm reading The Lying Game by Sara Shepard. I've only gotten to page 44 so far so I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the book. I am really use to the Pretty Little Liars books, so maybe I'm less responsive to a new idea of Sheperd's. I'm not hooked like I was with PLL.

So far I've learned that Sutton Mercer is dead and someone killed her and put the video on Youtube. Creepy, yes. Emma is an orphan who is desperate to get away from her slimey "brother" and her foster mother, so she runs off to find the girl who looks exactly like her - Sutton, her long lost twin.

I know it's realistic and all, but devoting a whole scene about looking over someone's Facebook page is a bit tedious. It did give Emma plenty of facts to search for (because she doesn't know that Sutton is dead.) So, presumably the person who murdered Sutton wrote Emma a message on FB, asking her to meet in Tuscon, Arizona. Emma blindly believes this person and is running around alone in Chapter 4, where I am now.

If this goes where I think it's going to go then it will be fine but extremely predictable (is she going to pose as Sutton but the killer knows the truth?)

Review of “The Help”

“All I'm saying is, kindness don't have no boundaries.”

Aibileen and Minny are two of the many African-American maids working in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s. Skeeter is a young white girl who wants to be a writer. When Skeeter hears that her friend wants to put in a separate toilet for her maid, she starts wondering how these maids feel about being treated this way. While it is extremely risky, the maids agree to tell Skeeter their story for a book that may be published. The problem is for Aibileen, Minny and the other maids – the consequences of their actions could be deadly.
I absolutely loved this book even though it took me so long to read it. Going through three main characters’ stories was time consuming but enjoyable just the same. I guess I didn’t want the book to end. There weren’t any dull parts or anything that wasn’t sincere about this book. The story was written in the best, most candid way a white female writer could have done. I appreciate Kathryn Stockett adding to the end of the book, her personal account, just as Skeeter did about Constantine. She addresses the criticism that comes from her writing from her perspective too:

What I am sure about it this: I don’t presume to think that I know what it really felt like to be a black woman in Mississippi, especially in the 1960s. I don’t think it is something any white woman on the other end of a black woman’s paycheck could ever truly understand. But trying to understand is vital to our humanity.

I think that is enough of an explanation to give the writer credit for trying to teach us something about our own human experience – and that is what makes for good literature. Reading for entertainment is fine but when you understand yourself and the world around you makes the experience that more impactful.
I’ve also heard someone say they hate narration written in dialogue, which makes me assume they don’t like many quality writers either. The big names such as Dickens, Twain, Hurston, and Faulkner write in dialect because it would be ineffective and unauthentic if they didn’t capture the voice of the characters. I’ve also heard that the book is funny which is true, in parts, but the overall tone of the book is so sad. But sad in a good way because you take something from that emotion – you feel for the characters, and, again, that’s what makes for a good book.
Anyway, I’ll have to watch the movie now and I did what I could to not think of the characters as the actresses I saw on the red carpet not long ago, but I assume the movie will be very good as well. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 76% which doesn’t mean much to me anymore since they gave Prometheus a 73% when it’s the biggest sci-fi film of the decade. But for students in class being able to compare and contrast with a novel like To Kill A Mockingbird would be a good idea for high school literature classes. It would especially be nice to tie in their history lessons on the Civil Rights Movement as well.

Review of “Goddess Test,” “Iron King,” and “Switched”

I decided to review these three books together as they were the last YA books I read recently. They also all have very similar plots.

Carter, Aimee. The Goddess Test. Ontario, Harlequin Teen, 2011. ISBN: 9780373210268
Kate’s mother is dying and her last wish is to return to her hometown. While Kate struggles to adjust, she finds new challenges. After having a run-in with a classmate over a boyfriend, Kate is approached by a dark character named Henry. He convinces her that he will save her classmate, and prolong her mother’s life, if she lives with him six months out of the year – just as his last wife, Persephone did. In order for Kate to become Henry’s new wife, she must pass the tests of the gods and goddesses in the Underworld where she calls home in the winter.
I read this entire book because it was pretty quick and easy to read. It was interesting to have a book try and use mythology for its paranormal themes too. I can’t say I’d read the rest in the series, however. I couldn’t connect to the situation at all – aside from it being ridiculous, I didn’t feel anything from Kate other than the heartbreak of losing her mother. Henry was only described as dark and young-looking until half way through the book she says he has black hair. I wasn’t interested in their relationship at all and I really felt bad for Kate to be tricked by her mother and being Diana in the end. The poor girl went through the loss of her mother as a test? Plus, having everyone she encountered all members of the Underworld was a bit convenient as well.
In every review I’ve read, no one seems to recall any other characters’ names for some reason. I guess it was all the same thing – girl is the chosen one of some powerful guy and she is “forced” to wear pretty clothes and live in a beautiful palace. That was the theme in Breaking Dawn, The Princess Diaries and that’s the theme for all these books in this review. It’s getting old.


Kagawa, Julie. The Iron King. Ontario, Harlequin Teen, 2010. ISBN: 9780373210084
Meghan’s father disappeared when she was a child, and she’s always had a hard time at school because she’s a “hick” who lives on a farm. She has one friend, a boy who is very mischievous, and a little brother who one day turns feral.  Meghan had no idea that she was a part of a magical world of fairies and she is the daughter of the king. She must travel with her best friend who turns out to be the literary historical Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and rescue her brother, and possibly her father.
I really liked this book at first because of the style and the normal day to day stuff then being transferred into a Narnia-type land was pretty cool. I loved her cat friend and I loved the action but half way through the action drove me crazy. There was always something going on to the point that I was exhausted. I didn’t finish the book because while I knew it would be interesting, I just couldn’t keep my attention up for that long to go through another fight or chase with some new creature that pops out of nowhere. By this time I was getting tired of Fairyland.
This book also had the same themes as the other two. Like The Goddess Test, there is the issue of having to wear pretty dresses and look fancy because the main female character is special. Like Switched, the family member is mysteriously gone and the evil mother doesn’t like the main character and they have to fight in the new, pretty palace that seems wonderful but it’s really terrible. Surely paranormal fiction can come up with something new soon.
Did Not Finish


Hocking, Amanda. Switched. New York, St. Martin’s, 2010. ISBN: 9781250006318
Wendy was always hated by her mother and when she was a child, her mother was institutionalized for trying to kill her. Now Wendy lives with her aunt and her brother but she still has a hard time fitting in at school. She has a power to make people do things if she thinks hard enough. Her friend, Finn, helps her escape when to goths try to attack her. She is forced to convince her brother that she is okay but that she needs to be away for a while. Finn takes her to find her real mother, a queen of the trolls who isn’t at all pleasant. Wendy has to keep her feelings for Finn at bay and try to adjust to not only being different but being the princess of this new world.
I was really excited to read Hocking’s work and I do think she’s  great writer. However, at this point of my three book stint, I was sick of the same plot lines. Not only does this also have the something happened when the heroine was a kid that hints to her being special, but it has the Princess Diaries plot line of having to live in this beautiful place with everything they get ever hope for, except it’s miserable. I didn’t mind the writing style or Wendy’s voice, it was just the troll thing that bothered me, especially since Wendy is short with crazy hair. I kept imagining a lawn gnome trying to put the moves on his fellow garden statue. I may go back to this book later but after reading three books in a row like this, I got tired of it.

Did Not Finish

Review of “Fahrenheit 451”

Guy Montag lives in a world without books. In fact, he burns them. But after meeting a strange young girl named Clarisse, she asks him if he is happy, and Montag begins wondering if being a fireman is worth it. His wife, Mildred overdoses on sleeping pills and nearly dies – something which she denies because she is so caught up in this world of watching interactive television. After Clarisse dies and Montag witnesses an old woman who would rather be burned alive with her books then part with them, he begins to revolt against the world without literature. He steals a book himself. Eventually after Mildred betrays her husband, Beatty, Montag’s boss, decides to burn Montag’s house due to his new-found love of books. As the mechanical house from the firehouse tries to capture Montag, he escapes and finds a group of men who have made themselves into books by memorizing whole texts.
This dystopian novel is astounding even for today with the idea of television over books. What makes the novel so lovely is the language of Bradbury: “The books leapt and danced like roasted birds, their wings ablaze with red and yellow feathers.” I liked the concept of the book very much and I appreciated that the whole thing was pretty quick. It was confusing at first, being in 2012 to get the idea of the family on television but then I understood it as a continuous reality show that Mildred watches around the clock. That isn’t very far from reality now, is it?
I would recommend this one as a good look at a classic dystopian novel. Since The Hunger Games are so popular now, students would be able to get the gist of this, I think. The idea of television rotting your brain so much that books are silly, ridiculous things is something I’m sure young adults can understand that idea.

Review of “A Moveable Feast”

“You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.”

Ernest Hemingway wrote of his time in Paris in the 1920s. This was a time of painters, writers and the Lost Generation between World War I and World War II. While Hemingway and his wife Hadley are poor at the time (as he claims in the memoir)  they enjoy good food and the kindness of others to get good books. Many of these creative minds are wonderful people personally, as Hemingway tells us of Ezra Pound, tiresome and unnerving as well. We get a look inside what these friends of his were really like in the way only Hemingway can do.
I wanted to re-read this after going through passages here and there over the years. The best part of Hemingway, to me, is his life. His style of writing is so interesting when he’s talking about himself and people he comes into contact with. His descriptions of physical features, conversations and the way he feels about these people is extraordinary. You don’t even have to know all of their works to get the idea of them as people who are intermingling in a play, of sorts, during this time in Paris.
For anyone who wants to read Hemingway in a quick and dirty way, I highly recommend this. I know some have been scarred by their high school assignment to read Old Man and the Sea but getting to know Hemingway is really rewarding. It’s all in his style that makes the reading so good. He doesn’t mess around with his readers – he tells you the story as straight as he can and it’s totally worth taking the time to read his short memoirs of Paris.
Best line of the whole book, when describing an Wyndham Lewis, "I do not think I had ever seen a nastier-looking man.... Under the black hat, when I had first seen them, the eyes had been those of an unsuccessful rapist.” Only Hemingway can explain things like this, bless him.

Review of “1984”

The thought police would get him just the same.

We’ve all heard of 1984 and since I wanted to go into some classic literature that I had passed up during my formative years, I decided to read this one.

The story is about Winston Smith who lives in Oceania. The world that he lives in is surrounded by surveillance and continual threat of being caught for even thinking something against The Party’s beliefs. Winston’s job at the Ministry of Truth is to rewrite history, literally. He goes through old newspaper articles and rewrites them in Newspeak, the language of The Party, to make the articles reflect The Party’s beliefs. Winston hates The Party and he hates Big Brother, the ominous presence that The Party has to keep a close eye on everyone. Julia, who fixes the novel-making machines and whom is a member of the Junior Anti-Sex League, gives Winston a note one day that says, “I love you.” He finds out that she too hates The Party and they start a secret affair. However, the more time they spend together the more willingly they run the risk of capture. When they are taken by The Party to jail, Winston is subjected to numerous forms of torture until he breaks and betrays Julia.

Forgive me for talking myself through this book as I do the review because there were some things I had a hard time with. I really hoped and expected to like this book. I heard over and over how much people loved it so I thought it would be face-paced, exciting and interesting. However, I got frustrated with the descriptions of the dystopian world, which I understand is necessary, but I am not interested in politics so this was the worst book for me to chose to read. Orwell took so much time creating the world that I didn’t care about Winston. I didn’t care about that book he got either. I skipped through the entire section. It was dead boring and it just wanted to show that the real history wasn’t what The Party tried to tell everyone it was. I got it.

Maybe I wasn’t supposed to care about Winston either. He says, “I am thirty nine years old. I’ve got a wife that I can’t get rid of. I’ve got varicose veins. I’ve got five false teeth.” This isn’t the most desirable character to chose as a hero, especially when he wants to rape and murder women. I guess he’s supposed to be a product of his environment but his willing rebellion from Big Brother is simply sleeping with Julia. That was his motivation. Julia had been with a ton of Party-hating men so her only form of rebellion was by seducing men (this would make more sense in 1949 when the book was written, I think.) Still, it seems a bit weak for a motivator when you have the whole dang world going to pot. I guess that’s the only way they could rebel since Winston says that the Proles (normal people) were the only ones who could potentially rebel with any success. Those in The Party had no chance.

Once Winston is caught and under unspeakable pain, he still argues with O’Brian, his captor. He even tells him that he hasn’t betrayed Julia so he hasn’t won. I understood that the interrogation was just to show how people have to accept whatever garbage their told to believe. 2+2=5 if you hear it long enough and it keeps you from dying. Winston’s capture was his own fault - he willingly got sloppy. He must have wanted to get caught just to get the looming inevitable over with.  He went romping with Julia, tried talking to people about hating The Party, and then fights them while his back is breaking. He ends up saying he loves Big Brother and he doesn’t feel the same about Julia. They’ve won. His whole purpose in the story was to show us how bad The Party can be.

Again, it’s just not my kind of book. I was interested in the parts about Winston and Julia but that’s only some of the book. The rest was too much description and political discussion that I didn’t have the patience for. I know it’s supposed to be an indicator of present times in society but in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we celebrate vapid, talentless rich people vapid who have 74 day marriages. I don’t think anyone’s going to get a rat cage attached to their face anytime soon for having an opinion on that – thank God.

Anyway, I agree that students in senior high should read this to get an idea of how politics can be. I’m not saying it’s not culturally or historically significant or that it’s a “bad” book. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as other classic books I’ve read. Politics aren’t my thing so any discussion of war puts me to sleep (just like baseball.)