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A review by pagesplotsandpints
A Lovely Lie by Jaime Lynn Hendricks
2.0
<b>Read Completed 6/4/24 |</b> 2 stars
Basically everyone was awful, and not in an enjoyable way.
A LOVELY LIE is my 3rd read by Jaime Lynn Hendricks but unfortunately, they just keep getting worse instead of better. I was hoping this would be a decent popcorn thriller, but it was a little too unbearable with everyone being an unlikable character. Pretty much everyone was terrible except for the son, a friend that's barely on-page (and even he's lusting after someone else's wife, basically), and... that's about it. Was I supposed to feel something for Scarlett? Because she was nearly as bad as everyone else, and her POV was a little irritating too.
The beginning of the book was already rough, but I was hoping things would get more interesting. The author does an annoying thing where she keeps telling you about "the incident, the incident" *~but we can't tell you what happened~*. Okay, I get that, it would spoil the book, but then stop talking about it and get on with some character-building or something. The flashbacks really didn't do much for me, and they're kind of take it or leave it in a thriller anyway, but I really don't like reading adult thrillers and then flashing back to snotty, stuck-up teenagers who make things feel like a bad YA novel. (This actually happens a lot, not just with this author.)
JLH still made this a readable book, even though I didn't enjoy it, and there's always something going on. While the characters were all pretty awful, at least they had some secrets that they were revealing, and there was still one surprise or two left for me in the end. It wasn't super wild when they were revealed, but there was a little more to each story in the end. I wanted one more thing from Scarlett to make her a more interesting character, but that didn't really happen and I wasn't a fan of her ending.
The final conclusion of the book was a little weird, throwing in extra happiness as well as extra tragedy that didn't really need to be there. It felt like a little shock value and didn't add anything to the plot. It just made me dislike everyone a little bit more. There was also kind of an odd choice to follow Scarlett and Zoe in first person POVs, but then have random ones thrown in there later. I don't really like when authors do that and usually prefer the POVs to stay consistent.
The writing was also a little clunky, which is fine for some popcorn thrillers where I'm pretty entertained, but the dialogue here wasn't the best and the amount of times Scarlett said "my boy" in reference to her son made me think somehow magically it was going to end up NOT being her boy even though she gave birth to him. Obviously that didn't happen, but I don't know why that was the writing choice or something that didn't get cleaned up in editing because it was glaring obvious while I was reading it and I saw many other readers note it in their reviews too. The title, "a lovely lie" was also used too many times and probably shouldn't have been used in dialogue at all because it's a decent title but not decent in conversation.
This was a messy one for me that wasn't saved by characters or plot. Sometimes when one is good and the other isn't, it can still turn out to be an enjoyable read but this one just wasn't it for me. I can still see plenty of people having fun reading it but I just needed a little bit more here.
AUDIOBOOK THOUGHTS: I borrowed this audiobook from my local library. This was narrated by Hillary Huber, who I really enjoy and she did a nice job with this book, for what it was. Things kind of got weird in the end when the author added in a lot more POVs and she had to narrate all of these in first person, even a male POV. I'll tell you, it was mighty weird to pause during the male POV and come back, forgetting I was in the middle of his chapter and not understand the female voice narrating it! I'm sure it was way too expensive to have a different narrator for all of them, but three females and one male -- it was a lot for one person. I don't think she did a bad job but it's also hard to get that many different voices when you have to do them in a first person narrative. It would have been better to have one narrator for third person, or each one to have their own voice.
Basically everyone was awful, and not in an enjoyable way.
A LOVELY LIE is my 3rd read by Jaime Lynn Hendricks but unfortunately, they just keep getting worse instead of better. I was hoping this would be a decent popcorn thriller, but it was a little too unbearable with everyone being an unlikable character. Pretty much everyone was terrible except for the son, a friend that's barely on-page (and even he's lusting after someone else's wife, basically), and... that's about it. Was I supposed to feel something for Scarlett? Because she was nearly as bad as everyone else, and her POV was a little irritating too.
The beginning of the book was already rough, but I was hoping things would get more interesting. The author does an annoying thing where she keeps telling you about "the incident, the incident" *~but we can't tell you what happened~*. Okay, I get that, it would spoil the book, but then stop talking about it and get on with some character-building or something. The flashbacks really didn't do much for me, and they're kind of take it or leave it in a thriller anyway, but I really don't like reading adult thrillers and then flashing back to snotty, stuck-up teenagers who make things feel like a bad YA novel. (This actually happens a lot, not just with this author.)
JLH still made this a readable book, even though I didn't enjoy it, and there's always something going on. While the characters were all pretty awful, at least they had some secrets that they were revealing, and there was still one surprise or two left for me in the end. It wasn't super wild when they were revealed, but there was a little more to each story in the end. I wanted one more thing from Scarlett to make her a more interesting character, but that didn't really happen and I wasn't a fan of her ending.
The final conclusion of the book was a little weird, throwing in extra happiness as well as extra tragedy that didn't really need to be there. It felt like a little shock value and didn't add anything to the plot. It just made me dislike everyone a little bit more. There was also kind of an odd choice to follow Scarlett and Zoe in first person POVs, but then have random ones thrown in there later. I don't really like when authors do that and usually prefer the POVs to stay consistent.
The writing was also a little clunky, which is fine for some popcorn thrillers where I'm pretty entertained, but the dialogue here wasn't the best and the amount of times Scarlett said "my boy" in reference to her son made me think somehow magically it was going to end up NOT being her boy even though she gave birth to him. Obviously that didn't happen, but I don't know why that was the writing choice or something that didn't get cleaned up in editing because it was glaring obvious while I was reading it and I saw many other readers note it in their reviews too. The title, "a lovely lie" was also used too many times and probably shouldn't have been used in dialogue at all because it's a decent title but not decent in conversation.
This was a messy one for me that wasn't saved by characters or plot. Sometimes when one is good and the other isn't, it can still turn out to be an enjoyable read but this one just wasn't it for me. I can still see plenty of people having fun reading it but I just needed a little bit more here.
AUDIOBOOK THOUGHTS: I borrowed this audiobook from my local library. This was narrated by Hillary Huber, who I really enjoy and she did a nice job with this book, for what it was. Things kind of got weird in the end when the author added in a lot more POVs and she had to narrate all of these in first person, even a male POV. I'll tell you, it was mighty weird to pause during the male POV and come back, forgetting I was in the middle of his chapter and not understand the female voice narrating it! I'm sure it was way too expensive to have a different narrator for all of them, but three females and one male -- it was a lot for one person. I don't think she did a bad job but it's also hard to get that many different voices when you have to do them in a first person narrative. It would have been better to have one narrator for third person, or each one to have their own voice.