Meg Carter's "The Lies We Tell"

"The Lies We Tell" is the debut book by Meg Carter. While browsing Netgalley one evening I came across this book. The first sentence in the summary caught my eye. The full summary reads:

"For fans of Gone Girl and Girl on the Train, THE LIES WE TELL is an addictive, complex and completely gripping psychological thriller in which present and past intertwine to devastating effect. Forced to revisit the same rocky waters of friendship and power they inhabited when they were fifteen, as the story reaches its explosive climax, Jude and Katy realize that when it comes to memory, truth and family – nothing and no-one are what they seem"

So it pretty much sounded like a great read to me! I honestly hated Gone Girl so bad that I attempted reading it 3 times but never finished. If I recall correctly, Girl On The Train was a 4 star for me. So this book sounded like it could be either in the middle, or a 5 star. Sadly, it was in the middle. 

I mean really, who doesn't like a book that is full of lies and deceit? A mystery to solve and figure out who lied about what and why thy lied at all. It's usually makes for a good read. 

In this case it was just-meh. It took me an extra long time to even get into the book. It switches back and forth between present day and the 1980s. We know something happens when they were young teens, but the book doesn't reveal exactly what is was. By reading and putting pieces together the reader slowly realizes what happens. Too slowly. This book just didn't grip me. It was so slow at times that I lost interest. 

I think the only interesting parts about this book were looking up locations and meanings of uncommon words. The author, I am guessing, is from the UK. Landmarks and neighborhoods are spewed left and right so to get a mental image of where things were happening in the story I looked them up! There is also a ton of wordage that are UK products or slang that I just didn't have a clue about or wasn't sure I quite knew what the author was talking about. It usually really turns me off having to stop and look things up (especially for books written by UK authors) but in this book it didn't bother me. Perhaps I was looking for a distraction from having to slowly continue the story. Or maybe I thought if I could 100% imagine the scenes and story that I could enjoy the book more. Who knows. 

While this wasn't a complete waste of time, it also wasn't a gripping thriller like I expected. 

The Lies We Tell is expected to be released on August 19, 2015.

Thanks to Netgalley and Canelo for allowing the egalley in exchange for my honest review. 

Happy Reading!