Book Review: A LIE FOR A LIE

Title: A Lie for a Lie

Author: Jane Buckingham

Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press

Pages: 256

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Sabrina Richards, a high school student, is determined to get into Harvard, in honour of her deceased mother whose dream it was to study there. When her application is deferred, it’s one more blow, given that she is already stressed out about the fact that her father’s girlfriend, Kaye, and the latter’s daughter, Parker, might move into their home. She’s also worked up about the drama of former best friend, Brooke. Brooke, Sabrina and Emily have been best friends since elementary school. But now Brooke is a Cool Girl, one of the high school elite. Only best friend, Emily remains by her side, until Sabrina learns that Emily has been admitted into Harvard, and it wasn’t even her dream.

Meanwhile, there is an anonymous person at Milford High, @Revenge, who is adept at helping the students get revenge. The person reaches out to Sabrina and, in a moment of weakness, Sabrina gives in to the desire to act out against Emily. But now @Revenge is asking her to do something worse. To prank the school’s star basketball player. And Sabrina dare not refuse, not when @Revenge holds the cards. But

The only thing she can do is find out who @Revenge is before more people get hurt. Or before @Revenge outs her own secret.

 

The book is written in the first-person present tense PoV of @Revenge and in the third-person limited present tense PoV of Sabrina. The Prologue in this book was a rare instance of a Prologue done well. It piqued my interest and forced me into the story.

I wish the author had written more chapters from the PoV of @Revenge. They were more interesting than Sabrina’s limited PoV, and made Sabrina look rather bland.

The first part of the book was an overly long introduction. Things kicked up a notch only at the 38 percent mark. I was plodding through for the purpose of this review.

I didn’t like Sabrina or Emily or any of the characters. For that matter, we don’t really get to know any of the characters. The only character I felt drawn towards was Charlie, Emily’s twin.

Sabrina drones on and on about Harvard. The excessive use of tell, with hardly any flashbacks, prevents us from getting into the story. The device of the dead mother’s letter is weak.

There were some questions that didn’t have answers. How did a basketball court full of people not register the bottle in Finn’s hand? How did the police not look for it, nor think of checking it for fingerprints? The bottle wasn’t even mentioned. There were no details about how the crime against Finn, or any of the others, was carried out, not even at the end.

Sabrina asks a teacher, Mrs Esry, if another character, who she suspects of being @Revenge, couldn’t have made another social media account or used another phone, both of which activities are possible, the teacher says, it is impossible. When Sabrina presses her for an answer, she evades the question and answers that he is in the clear, without answering what evidence she has to support that claim. It’s just, Believe me, we’ve checked. How lame!

Sabrina is just as daft. Even when the antagonist admits to being @Revenge, Sabrina doesn’t understand what the admission means.

There were some issues with the incorrect use of tenses, which should have been weeded out.

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)