Friday, December 31, 2010

The Lying Game by Sara Shepard

Warning: The following blog post contains spoilers for the Pretty Little Liars series (especially Book 8 - Wanted). If you are planning on reading or are currently reading this series you might want to skip straight to the bottom of the post for exciting news straight from Sara Shepard herself about PLL! It will also contain spoilers for The Lying Game.



"I had a life anyone would kill for. 

Then someone did.

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?
 
Let the lying game begin."

What if you had a long-lost twin? What if she disappeared the day you were supposed to meet? How far would you go to find out what happened? The main character of Sara Shepard's new YA novel "The Lying Game", Emma Paxton, is a foster child, abandoned by her flaky mother and bounced from foster home to foster home. Until now. Stuck in a foster home with a foster brother that despises her, her life gets turned upside-down when she is shown a video of a girl, her exact copy, being strangled to death. Shocked and intrigued by the video, Emma does some digging and finds out that the girl in the video is Sutton Mercer, from Tucson, Arizona. Emma contacts Sutton, who she finds put is adopted, and they arrange to meet. Emma arrives at their arranged meeting spot, only to find Sutton isn't there... After being kidnapped by her long-lost twin's friends, and pretending to be Sutton in order to have a place to crash for the night, Emma wakes up to find that there is no sign of her sister, and to find a note, telling her that Sutton is dead, and that she must keep pretending to be Sutton, unless she wants to be next.

The first thing, besides the cover, that caught my eye about this book was that it was narrated in a kind-of first person omniscient, yet limited, point of view by Sutton, the (supposedly, but more on that later) dead girl who Emma is trying to find. Sutton's spirit is following Emma around, attempting to unravel her own murder at the same time as Emma does, seeing how she has lost her memory. I found this concept very interesting, since I haven't read any books before that use this sort of technique as the narration (and trust me, I have read many books). The main reason I found this interesting is that it not only gives us the view of what Emma is doing to find Sutton's murderer, but it also gives us glimpses into Sutton's memory, as she slowly starts to remember what happened to her leading up to her death.

Before she disappeared, Sutton had dug herself into a pretty deep hole, giving us a HUGE spread of characters who could have possibly killed her. Boyfriend-stealer, liar, prankster, b***h, and many other names, all give so many motives to who could have killed Sutton. First up on the suspect list: Charlotte, one of Sutton's best friends and the most recent ex of Sutton's boyfriend, Garrett, who Sutton apparently "stole" from her. Next up, Laurel, the girl who want to be Sutton, and her little sister. (Sound familiar PLL readers?). Laurel always imitated Sutton, down to a boy they both liked, Thayer, who mysteriously disappeared not too long ago. Rounding out the major suspects, Nisha, Sutton's rival in everything, from school to sports and more. Also, the mysterious Ethan, who Sutton owes a pretty huge debt to, comes across as somewhat creepy. Overall, the cast of shadowy and mysterious characters creates an air of intrigue throughout the book, which kept me reading until the very end.

To add to all the drama, Sutton, Laurel, Charlotte and their other best friend, Madeline, are all involved in a game created by them, called The Lying Game (hence the title of the book). In the Lying Game, each of the girls try to outdo each other with over the top pranks, which range from funny, to downright scary and disturbing. Sutton, a notorious liar and prankster, and the leader of the Lying Game, had the most outrageous pranks of all, and before she disappeared had been bragging that she had a new prank that would be the best ever, leaving Emma wondering what exactly is going on with Sutton...

I have to say that after devoutly reading all 8 Pretty Little Liars books, I wasn't sure that this new book would live up to my expectations, but oh boy was I wrong. The twists and turns that Sara Shepard created with this new book were amazing and it left me hanging on my seat trying to figure out so much more. I enjoyed this book immensely, and was unable to put it down until I had finished the entire novel! Can't wait until the next book, "Never Have I Ever", comes out!!!!

Now, for what I mentioned earlier. Is Sutton really dead? After what happened at the end of Wanted (PLL Book 8), I have serious reason to doubt that Sutton is actually dead... What do you think?

For anyone who is interested in the book, you can find an excerpt here (up to Chapter 7, pg. 68):
http://browseinside.harperteen.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061869709

Or go to the Official Lying Game Site here:
http://www.prettylittleliars.com/the-lying-game/

Or you can watch the following video of Sara, the author, talking about The Lying Game:



Once you have read the book, what did you think of it?




Also, did you hear? There are going to be 4 more Pretty Little Liars books! Comment below to talk about theories for the next book, opinions, and more!

Until next time, xoxo, Athena

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