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Sunday, July 31, 2011

Review: The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock

Author: Mary Horlock
Genre/Age: Literary fiction, historical, adult
Publication: 2011
Source: For review, TLC

Summary
: The Book of Lies tells two alternating stories that took place on the island of Guernsey. One is that of Cat, an intelligent 15 year old girl in 1985, who killed her best friend Nic, the popular golden girl and new arrival on the island. Once best friends, a betrayal and cruelty from Nicolette sends them far apart from each other. The other story is of Cat's family history, and the German occupation on the island. Her father Emile, now deceased, is obsessed with the story of the occupation in hopes of repairing his brother Charlie's tarnished reputation.

My Thoughts: Oh how excited I was to read this novel. I love murder, suspense, and intrigue in my books, and I've also always been fascinated by the Holocaust. However, I have to admit I was let down, despite the exciting sounding premise.

First things first, I LOVED Cat. She was pretentious, snarky, and a little bit crazy. Her narration was pretty hilarious and I loved the casual style of it and the way she spoke. She used an awful lot of parentheses to express unrelated thoughts, which I do often, and I really appreciated that. For example, after using some "big" or interesting words, she would go "(excellent word)." She was a bit conniving and manipulative, but she did crack me up.

Despite the excellent narration and characterization in this book, for me, it kind of dragged, and it was extremely confusing at times. There were a lot of names and characters mentioned and I had no idea who they were throughout the entire novel. I'm definitely one for detail, and I often flip back to re-read things, so not knowing who certain people were was quite frustrating. I also think the book just never picked up its pace. I thought it was going to be full of suspense and mayhem, but it was mostly a long, drawn out account of Cat and Nic's friendship, and Charlie's history with the German occupation.

The idea of this book was great, as was Cat herself, but the execution wasn't the best and it did not hold my attention.

My Rating: 2.5/5

7 comments:

  1. I have this one on my bookshelf. I have read mixed reviews about it, but I still want to read it.

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  2. I agree totally, though Cat was a little loony to me. LOL!

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  3. That too bad this one didn't really work for you. When I saw this one was set in Guernsey I got excited but it sounds like it might be one I need to skip. There's always more books in the sea!

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  4. Too bad this one didn't turn out too great because it sounds interesting. Great review :)

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  5. I had high hopes for this as well but after seeing so many unfavorable reviews for it, I think I will skip it. Great review, Steph! Snarky(excellent word)!

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  6. Darn, I'm sorry this one didn't turn out as good as you'd hoped! Still, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts for the tour.

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  7. I guess I enjoyed this book much more than you did, but I really am drawn to anything with a WWII connection. I do agree that I thought the story was going to be more suspenseful than it was, but I loved it anything. I hope it's okay that I linked to your review on War Through the Generations.

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