Thursday, July 26, 2018

The Lying Game

Book: The Lying Game
Author: Ruth Ware

On a cool June morning, a woman is walking her dog in the idyllic coastal village of Salten along a tidal estuary known as the Reach. Before she can stop him, the dog charges into the water to retrieve what first appears to be a wayward stick, but to her horror, turns out to be something much more sinister...

The next morning, three women in and around London—Fatima, Thea, and Isabel—receive the text they had always hoped would NEVER come, from the fourth in their formerly inseparable clique, Kate, that says only, “I need you.”

The four girls were best friends at Salten, a second rate boarding school set near the cliffs of the English Channel. Each different in their own way, the four became inseparable and were notorious for playing the Lying Game, telling lies at every turn to both fellow boarders and faculty, with varying states of serious and flippant nature that were disturbing enough to ensure that everyone steered clear of them. The myriad and complicated rules of the game are strict: no lying to each other—ever. Bail on the lie when it becomes clear it is about to be found out. But their little game had consequences, and the girls were all expelled in their final year of school under mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of the school’s eccentric art teacher, Ambrose (who also happens to be Kate’s father).-Goodreads

Review: This is my second Ruth Ware book. I wasn't impressed with 'In a Dark, Dark Wood' and I wasn't impressed with this. Four girls are best friends as teenagers (well, in this case they were at school for less than a year together), did something bad, go their separate ways, come back together in their 30s when one of the girls summons the others and eventually the "bad deed" is revealed. While I think the premise of the book is good and this could have been interesting, the characters were flat, it lacked suspense and it was predictable. I didn't believe the tight friendship of the girls as teens and our narrator, Isa, was so dry and boring. When the bad deed was revealed I couldn't help thinking....that was it? 


Grade: 2/5

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