Battle of the Book: The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

Hello all!

For our readers who are here in New Jersey, I hope everyone made it out of Winterstorm Quinn okay. 

I thought I would start a new series.... Battle of the Books. 
Jess and I will both be attending the "Spine Breakers" book club next week.  The book this month was The Lying Game (obviously, lol.)

Last week Jess posted a review on The Lying Game by Ruth Ware. She beat me to posting a new review! Which isn't hard to do when you have a million things going on and you only get sit down in front of your computer once a week.

I know that Jess and I usually read different genres but novels that have the same themes.  I thought though that it would be interesting for you guys to see what I thought of The Lying Game versus what Jess thought of the same book. 

You can check out Jess's review here. 

Unlike Jess, I hadn't heard much about this book prior to reading it.  I knew of two people (excluding her) who read the book and the opinions there this: one loved the book and the one hated it. 

Ware's story opens when someone finding a body. Very vague. Very creepy. 

The first character that we met is Isa Wilde, a lawyer and a new mother to a 6 month old baby girl, Freya. 

Isa receives a text message a three word text "I need you". It's not only Isa who gets this text, it's also Fatima and Thea.  
The person who sent the text is Kate. 
It's been FIFTEEN YEARS since these four women have spoken to each other. 

Fifteen years ago these four women were in a boarding school together - fifteen years ago these four women participated in something that you could easily say was criminal. 

Lies that they had spun and woven for the fifteen years are falling apart right before their eyes. 

When the girls were completing their fifth year at school, Ambrose Atagon (the art teacher, who is Kate's father) committed suicide.  No one at the time knows why he committed suicide.  What they do know is that private sketches of the girls done by Ambrose ended up in the hands of the head mistress at school. 

The actions from the night that Ambrose died, tied in with the sketches is what ultimately gets the girls kicked out. 

Ware spins a story that follows these 4 women as they navigate the past and their lies.  There are peaks, twists and turns. There is some confusion but the story does come together at the end.

My feelings on this book? I'm feeling neutral on it.  I didn't love it and I didn't hate it.  It was just there. 

I feel like the focus of the book is Isa. 

I did not like Isa. 

I didn't like how she canoodled with Luc! I didn't like how Luc took the baby! I didn't like her character; I left like she was whiny. I was impressed with the way that Ware was able to tie the story together at the end.  I left like there were a lot of different things happening (Luc and Isa is the perfect example!!) I personally don't feel like any strings were left undone....

I also didn't feel like the book was that much of a thriller. I thought it fell both short and flat on that. I wouldn't say that it was easy to figure out right away, but once all of the evidence was presented, you could definitely follow her thought process. 

I give this book 2 coffee beans out of 5 coffee beans. Sadly, there is no conflict between our reviews for our first battle of the book!

Stay tuned to see what next month might bring!

~ Jillian