The Lying Game by Sara Shepard

The Lying Game by Sara Shepard

HarperTeen, December 7, 2010

(review copy received from NetGalley)

Summary from Goodreads:

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?

I loved this story and I will absolutely be following this series so I can get to the bottom of all the mystery. I even thought the whole twin-sisters-separated-at-birth-one thing worked (a stretch of the imagination, for sure, but for this story, completely plausible). I'm torn on the two voices, though. I mean, it's absolutely clear--to us, the readers--that Sutton is dead. There are times when Emma's not so sure, though, and those times had me practically screaming at her: "Yes, she's really dead!" Obviously, if Sutton is IN Emma's mind, she's got to be dead, right? Sutton can hear Emma but Emma can't hear Sutton.

The other thing that I've been thinking about is that Sutton, in life, was not really a nice person. In her afterlife, however, she seems to have changed. Both Emma and Dead-Sutton are shocked at some of the stunts Live-Sutton has pulled. Does death really erase all your memories of being an evil mastermind? I suppose only the next few books will tell!

Oh, and then there's the whole murder thing. Who did it? Why? Shepard is a genius for giving us just enough information to whet our appetites, without revealing too much of anything at all! And fortunately I don't think we'll have to wait too long for more info--Goodreads lists the second book in the series, Never Have I Ever, with an anticipated release date of April 8, 2011.

Enjoy your reading!
Christi