Review: Lies (by T.M. Logan)

My Rating: 3 stars

For me, this book was a chore to read, one that I struggled through and pushed myself to finish, not because it was a difficult read or anything like that (in fact, I found the writing on this one a bit too simplistic), but rather, I felt that the story never really took off.  The premise had potential, as there aren't too many books out there nowadays that incorporate modern technology (in the form of smartphones, tablets, laptops) and social media (i.e. Facebook) into a crime thriller – the technology in this case was front and center and in some instances, even became one of the focal "characters" in the story.  Unfortunately, the execution didn't really work for me – I felt that the plot was a bit all over the place (especially in the second half of the book), the characters were one-dimensional and written in a way that made all of them unlikable (with the exception of the kid William), and too many elements of the story just seemed implausible.  Throughout most of the story, there just seemed to be way too much "explaining" going on by various characters, especially as it related to aspects of technology and social media, things that I felt were common sense enough in this day and age that such thorough explanations felt unnecessary.  Parts of the story were also bogged down by what I felt were details that didn't matter (for example, one of the characters taking out their smart phone, swiping over to an app, opening file manager, going through each folder, pulling up a file, closing it out, etc.) – it felt tedious, and for me, detracted from the telling of the main story.

I went into this book initially expecting it to be an "edge-of-your-seat" thriller and admittedly, the first couple chapters did pique my curiosity.  However the story slowed considerably and started to drag quite a bit in the middle, to the point that by the time I got to the "twist" at the end, it felt anti-climactic (though it probably didn't help that I already figured out most of the ending already by then so the surprise element wasn't there).   I also felt like I had to suspend disbelief a bit too much throughout the story – yes, the title of the book is Lies and there are plenty of them in the story, but it seemed like only the main character Joe was the one constantly being lied to….he came across as a little too naïve and clueless until the end when he suddenly figured everything out, which seemed just too implausible to me.  Joe's reaction to things that happen in the story also felt a little off, emotionless almost, which made it hard for me to connect with that character (technically all the characters to be honest), though I think this has to do more with Joe also narrating the story from his own first person point of view.  I guess I'm just not a fan of fictional stories that are told in 1^st person because the viewpoint is so limited and unless the author is trying to achieve a particular purpose with the story, it's a skill that I feel is hard to get right.  

While I don't regret reading this one and some parts of it truly were entertaining, it just wasn't enough for this to feel like a satisfying read to me.  Overall, I felt the content was good, just didn't really like the execution.  With that said, I do appreciate all the research that went into the book and I actually did learn a bit more about social media and technology than I knew before, which is why I decided to rate this 3 stars, even though it was technically closer to 2.5 stars.  It looks like I'm in the minority with this one though, as everyone else seemed to like it more than I did, so I would recommend checking out those reviews to get a more balanced opinion.

Received ARC from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley