Book Review: "The Lying Game" by Sara Shepard

Summary from BN.com: 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?

I must admit that last year I discovered the Pretty Little Liars series and they quickly became one of my guilty reading pleasures. I haven't seen the TV show (mainly because I know it's different from the books) but I devoured the books like they were nothing. They are rather trashy but very fun to read. When I learned that Sara Shepard was going to be writing another series akin to the PLL books, I knew that I had to read them as well.

The narrator of the story is Sutton, who also happens to be dead. Through her voice we discover that she had been murdered and we must find out who the killer is. We also learn that she had a twin sister, a secret that the two girls had been unaware of their entire lives. Emma discovers about Sutton too late and goes to seek her out when her own life in a foster family ends badly. She ends up then becoming Sutton and living her life. What I find interesting is that since Sutton is dead, we only get her opinions just on what is going on with Emma as well as what happened before Sutton died. It's almost as if when Sutton died, Emma came into being. Hmm...

It's a rather difficult read at time to see how mean, vindictive and violent teen girls can get. Not that I doubt that girls won't do this but it definitely shows that it's not always boys who are out to hurt physically. I always find it interesting at how clueless many of the adults are in situations like this and it saddens me that they have no idea what their children really are like. These kids are way spoiled and it makes me glad that I did not grow up like that. The ending leaves you hanging which is inevitable since this is going to be a series. Overall the content of the book is not as raunchy as Pretty Little Liars but at the same time, I didn't feel that particular zing. Still Shepard's writing is addictive so I know that I will be hanging around for whatever comes next.

The Lying Game by Sara Shepard is published by HarperTeen (2010)

This ARC was provided by the Amazon Vine program