Review: Sometimes I Lie (by Alice Feeney)

My Rating:  4.5 stars

Wow, what a ride!  This was one of the best psychological suspense/thrillers I have read to date, and also one with the most “twists and turns.”  This book was so hard to put down that I devoured it in two sittings, frantically turning pages in anticipation of finding out what was going to happen and then being surprised as each twist was bigger than the one before it.  The ending left me reeling and to be honest, even after reading the last few paragraphs a few times, I’m still not quite sure I “got” it – I don’t know if the author Alice Feeney intended to leave the ending up to interpretation or perhaps a follow-up is planned, but either way, the suspense level was definitely pushed to the max.  The entire story was unpredictable and just when I thought I had something figured out, the plot went in a different direction altogether – basically, the more I read, the more I didn’t know who or what I should believe, yet at no point did I feel frustrated with the direction the story went, which to me is an indication of the author’s skill and talent.  The title of this book, Sometimes I Lie, is absolutely fitting – in fact, I would say it’s the perfect title given everything that happened in the story.

If I were to choose one word to describe this book, I would absolutely choose the word “clever.”  The format of the book is cleverly laid out with chapters simply titled Now, Then, and Before – the author slowly reveals clues throughout the alternating chapters, then cleverly weaves each revelation in one chapter into the backstory in the next chapter.  Despite the seemingly complicated structure, the author made it look effortless, as the story flowed extremely well, though there were a few scenes involving one of the characters (Edward) that I thought were not all that necessary while there were a few other characters that I had hoped to learn more about.  Overall though, these small “gripes” were insignificant and did not affect how much I enjoyed this read. 

Almost all of the reviews on this book advise to go into this one knowing as little as possible, which I absolutely agree with – this is why I opted to write this review as vaguely as possible while still relaying my general feelings on what I had read.  I highly recommend this one and am sure that thriller fans especially will enjoy it!

After I finished the book, I immediately went online to research more on the author as well as the book.  Once again, I am completely blown away by the fact that this amazing work is actually the author’s debut novel and am equally floored to hear that some parts of the story were actually based on her personal experiences, which explains why so many of the scenes – especially the ones in the hospital – felt so real.  I also found out that the author has a second book coming out in January 2019 (for those who are thinking this is perhaps the “follow up” to this story, the author clarified in an interview that the story is completely unrelated but will be just as “dark and twisty”).  You can bet that I will be one of the first in line to get my hands on the second book when it comes out!!

Received ARC from Flatiron Books via NetGalley