The Lying Game ~ Sara Shepard review

The Lying Game (#1)
HarperTeen
December 7, 2010
320 pages
Amazon


Sutton Mercer lives a privileged life: loving parents, beautiful sister, tight group of best friends, hot boyfriend, expensive clothing, her own car, she has it all. But Sutton Mercer's not around to live that life anymore, she's dead.

Emma Paxton's lived in foster care since she was five years old: no real parents, no boyfriend, no expensive anything. Emma believes herself to be biologically an only child until she sees a video online of a girl who looks exactly like her. After sending the girl a message on Facebook they make plans to meet.

Soon, with ghostly Sutton accompanying her (unbeknownst to Emma), Emma finds herself forced to fill in for the missing Sutton. Can she fool Sutton's friends and family, who don't seem to know Sutton's missing, into believing she's her twin while she unearths what happened? (And keep herself safe?!)


The Lying Game is more than a little bit like Pretty Little Liars, Sara Shepard's other series, with death/murder (that I want to say like mehdehr), backstabbing, treachery, and tons of twists and turns.

Having, in essence, one and a half main characters, with Emma doing everything but usually as Sutton and Sutton taking part as sort of her subconscious (that she couldn't hear) made for a very interesting telling. Usually when there's a 'dead' character in a book that is a part of the story someone else can hear them or they're more separate from everything, but with Sutton participating in everything, but also really removed, it made for a unique reading experience.

I'm really inters ted to see if this style, with Sutton and Emma continues for the rest of the story or if Sutton gets more involved.


This first book in the series was really an introduction to the series and ending without resolving much, but it definitely got me hooked on the story enough that I really cannot wait for the next installment(s) to find out more about the both Sutton and Emma and their lives and have more of the mystery unfold.

(NB: The prologue of The Lying Game was a little confusing, but things really picked up (and made more sense) once the first chapter started--so if you pick it up to see if you're interested, I'd suggest reading at least that far! )

8/10