The Lies We Told by Camilla Way — Review

Summary:

The highly acclaimed author of Watching Edie returns with a new novel of dark psychological suspense that explores how those closest to us have the most to hide…

When Clara’s boyfriend, Luke, disappears, everyone believes that he’s left her, but Clara thinks she knows the truth. Recent evidence suggests that Luke had a stalker, and Clara worries that he’s been kidnapped. Then Luke’s older sister, Emily, who vanished twenty years ago, suddenly reappears.

Emily wants to help Clara with her search for Luke, but she refuses to talk about what happened–even though it nearly destroyed her family when she vanished. And the deeper Clara digs into Luke’s mysterious disappearance, the more convinced she is that the two incidents are connected.

Review: 4 Stars

I finally decided to pick this book up because I was looking for something good to read and all of my friends had raved about this book and now I see why. The Lies We Told is a psychological thriller that grabbed my attention from the very beginning. There were so many layers of secrets to be uncovered and I couldn’t predict the twists the plot took. Reading this book was like seeing an accident, it was horrifying and I couldn’t bring myself to look away.

I really loved how well the characters were done. The story is told in alternating points of view and timelines. It switched from the point of view of Beth, the mother of Hannah, in the past when she was watching her child growing up and starting to realize that Hannah was a sociopath, and Clara’s point of view in the present when her boyfriend Luke first goes missing. Both points of view included periodic flashbacks, really helping flesh out the characters and give them depth. While Clara’s point of view focused more on the plot and had tons of twists and turns, it was Beth’s chapters that truly fascinated me. I truly sympathized with her, imagining what it must be like to have a sociopath as a daughter. I really felt for Beth throughout the story and related with her even though I’m not a mother.

The plot was so intriguing. I thought that maybe it wouldn’t be great because from the beginning you know that Hannah had to be involved in Luke’s disappearance, so I felt like there couldn’t be much mystery to the story. But as the secrets started to be revealed it became clear that there was so much more to the whole plot. I could have never guessed where the story was heading and I think the plot was crafted very well. I do feel like the climax to the story could have been better. I feel like it unraveled a little too easily in the end.

This was a really wild thriller and overall I really liked it. I enjoyed having a different type of mystery where there were lots of secrets to uncover and that the mystery was more of how it all happened than who did it. Although there were times where I wasn’t sure which character Hannah was in the present. I haven’t read many stories about sociopaths and I think choosing the mother’s perspective was a great choice because it gave such a clear picture of the horror of the whole story. I don’t think I would have enjoyed a story from Hannah’s point of view because sociopaths lack regular emotions. The Lies We Told was the kind of book I tore through very quickly and will have a hard time forgetting. It has been several months since I read this and I can still remember the entire plot, so this is the type of book that definitely stands out.