The Lying Game by Ruth Ware | REVIEW

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware
Published by Gallery/Scout Press on July 25th 2017
Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery
Pages: 384
Format: ARC

On a cool June morning, a woman is walking her dog in the idyllic coastal village of Salten along a tidal estuary known as the Reach. Before she can stop him, the dog charges into the water to retrieve what first appears to be a wayward stick, but to her horror, turns out to be something much more sinister…

The next morning, three women in and around London—Fatima, Thea, and Isabel—receive the text they had always hoped would NEVER come, from the fourth in their formerly inseparable clique, Kate, that says only, “I need you.”

The four girls were best friends at Salten, a second rate boarding school set near the cliffs of the English Channel. Each different in their own way, the four became inseparable and were notorious for playing the Lying Game, telling lies at every turn to both fellow boarders and faculty, with varying states of serious and flippant nature that were disturbing enough to ensure that everyone steered clear of them. The myriad and complicated rules of the game are strict: no lying to each other—ever. Bail on the lie when it becomes clear it is about to be found out. But their little game had consequences, and the girls were all expelled in their final year of school under mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of the school’s eccentric art teacher, Ambrose (who also happens to be Kate’s father).

The Review

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The Lying Game by Ruth Ware is a mystery thriller about 4 girls who met at private school and created a game where they had to make people believe their lies to win. But when one of the girl’s father, the art teacher at the school, gets caught drawing them outside of school hours, he winds up mysteriously dead. Every lie has it’s consequence, was this theirs?

What I enjoyed from The Lying Game was how much I got Pretty Little Liars vibes but with older woman from it. These girls told the most obscene lies to their classmates and teachers that their credibility was crap. Their only rule was they couldn’t lie to each other. So when Kate texts them up out of the blue 17 years after they got expelled from Salten under mysterious circumstances, they drop everything a run back to her.

I liked that each girl was different in their approach to morals and how they live their lives knowing what they did so long ago. Isabel now has a new born baby daughter and doesn’t want to involve her in any of this mess. Fatima has become a devoted Muslim and knows deep in her heart that God will forgive her actions if she truly repents. Thea is still the wild child she was in high school. She works at a casino and still has a high tolerance for alcohol and cigarettes. No character was the same and it was easily identifiable how each character would react in a certain situation.

The Lying Game has a big reveal just after the halfway point and I began to think that maybe it was just too soon for that. But Ware throws you through a couple loops before we get to the end that I definitely did not see coming.

I thought it was definitely well planned out and well executed and goes to show that authors get better book after book. I am definitely looking forward to what she has in stores for us next!

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I highly recommend this one if you like Pretty Little Liars, plot twists and well rounded characters. Let me know what you guys thought of The Lying Game by Ruth Ware! I would love to hear your opinions as well!

Until next time,

 

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Ruth Ware grew up in Sussex, on the south coast of England. After graduating from Manchester University she moved to Paris, before settling in North London.

She has worked as a waitress, a bookseller, a teacher of English as a foreign language and a press officer. She is married with two small children, and In a Dark, Dark Wood is her début thriller.