My Rating: 3.5 stars
What would you do if you woke up one day and couldn't remember a single detail from your past life? Not only that, the people taking care of you, who claim to be your family, you find out are actually keeping secrets from you about your past life and even outright lying to you, feeding you one lie after another after another? This is the exact situation that Chloe Daniels, the protagonist of Michelle Adams's newest work Between the Lies, finds herself in after she wakes up following a horrific car accident. As she slowly recovers from the trauma, both physically and mentally, she starts to remember bits and pieces of her life, faded memories of events and people, as well as glimpses into the person she was before the accident. When getting closer and closer to the truth also means putting herself back in harm's way, Chloe must decide whether it is a risk worth taking.
Given the above premise, this book definitely started off quite strong. With the story being told mostly from Chloe's point of view, the author did a good job keeping the suspense element going by putting us, as the readers, into Chloe's mind and unravelling the truth of her life alongside her, pretty much every step of the way. The story continued to be intriguing as Chloe unraveled one lie after another and at several points in the story, initially at least, it was actually hard not to feel sorry for what she was going through, for the sheer helplessness of her situation. Unfortunately, around the midway point or so, the story started to drag a little and there were certain points where I kind of questioned Chloe's actions in terms of how realistic it was for her to be doing what she was doing given the circumstances. The suspense piece also fizzled out a bit for me at that point, though it probably didn't help that I had already figured out the ending early on and had already guessed who the "unnamed narrator" was whose thoughts were interspersed sporadically in between Chloe's narration of events. Not sure if the story was too predictable or perhaps I'm just getting better at figuring these things out now after reading so many thrillers / suspense novels the past few years – I wasn't surprised at the way everything played out and when "the truth" was finally revealed, it felt anti-climactic because I already expected it.
With all the above said though, one of the things I appreciated most about this book was the writing. As the title implies, much of the book was about the protagonist trying to figure out the truth in between all the lies and the way the story was written, the lies actually blended in so naturally that, at times, it truly was hard to distinguish between the two. Also, the story was compelling enough to keep my attention throughout, despite some of the parts that dragged, which I feel is important in this case because I didn't really like most of the characters all that much and couldn't relate to any of them.
Overall, this was a good story that is definitely worth a read, though don't expect an "edge-of-your-seat" thriller because this definitely is not that type of book. I would categorize this more as domestic suspense, as there was no roller coaster ride of twists and turns and not much in terms of a "big reveal" (though of course, opinions may differ on this, as it depends on whether you figured out the ending early like I did). I would recommend checking this one out for yourself to see if it's worth your time, as the story is certainly compelling enough to make this a relatively quick read.
Received ARC from St. Martin's Griffin via NetGalley
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