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A review by reviewdiaries
Lying Out Loud by Kody Keplinger
3.0
This review was written for The Review Diaries
You can read the full review here
Thanks to Netgalley and Hachette Children’s Books/Hodder Children’s Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review
I absolutely adored ‘The DUFF’ when I read it for the first time earlier this year, Bianca was sassy and brilliant and I loved the relationship between her and Wesley. So I was insanely excited to find out this was a companion novel with Amy, Wesley’s little sister as one of the main characters – plus there would be cameos from Bianca and Wesley themselves.
However the idea and the actuality were two very different things. Whilst I was a huge fan of Bianca I really didn’t gel so well with Sonny, she was so destructive and her compulsive lying and constant bragging about her lying abilities were frustrating and stopped me from really connecting with her as a character. The further into the story I got the clearer it became that whilst Sonny thought she was fooling everyone, and yes she did manage it with a few people, on the whole the only person she was successfully lying to was herself. Everyone else just saw straight through it.
Without that connection to Sonny the book never lifted beyond ‘okay’ for me. Keplinger has a talent for writing very polarizing characters. Bianca split people’s opinions just as much, only I fell in the loving her camp rather than finding her abrasive. This time I’m on the other side of the fence and so whilst it was a quick and at points enjoyable read, I never recaptured the same enjoyment I experienced whilst reading ‘The DUFF’.
That then coloured all of my other feelings for the story. I didn’t find Wesley and Bianca as interesting in their brief cameos, I never really connected with Amy and she felt like a criminally underused character that I was looking forward to getting to know, and Ryder never captivated me the same way that Wesley did.
I love that Keplinger writes flawed characters – it was one of the reasons I loved ‘The DUFF’ so much but I didn’t find Ryder and Sonny as easy to relate to.
So whilst my enjoyment of the book was marred by these, they were personal preferences. The story had all the elements that I loved in ‘The DUFF’ it was just a shame that I didn’t connect with the characters. I know a lot of people will love this story and the characters as they did with Bianca. But for me personally I’m going to stick with ‘The Duff’.
You can read the full review here
Thanks to Netgalley and Hachette Children’s Books/Hodder Children’s Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review
I absolutely adored ‘The DUFF’ when I read it for the first time earlier this year, Bianca was sassy and brilliant and I loved the relationship between her and Wesley. So I was insanely excited to find out this was a companion novel with Amy, Wesley’s little sister as one of the main characters – plus there would be cameos from Bianca and Wesley themselves.
However the idea and the actuality were two very different things. Whilst I was a huge fan of Bianca I really didn’t gel so well with Sonny, she was so destructive and her compulsive lying and constant bragging about her lying abilities were frustrating and stopped me from really connecting with her as a character. The further into the story I got the clearer it became that whilst Sonny thought she was fooling everyone, and yes she did manage it with a few people, on the whole the only person she was successfully lying to was herself. Everyone else just saw straight through it.
Without that connection to Sonny the book never lifted beyond ‘okay’ for me. Keplinger has a talent for writing very polarizing characters. Bianca split people’s opinions just as much, only I fell in the loving her camp rather than finding her abrasive. This time I’m on the other side of the fence and so whilst it was a quick and at points enjoyable read, I never recaptured the same enjoyment I experienced whilst reading ‘The DUFF’.
That then coloured all of my other feelings for the story. I didn’t find Wesley and Bianca as interesting in their brief cameos, I never really connected with Amy and she felt like a criminally underused character that I was looking forward to getting to know, and Ryder never captivated me the same way that Wesley did.
I love that Keplinger writes flawed characters – it was one of the reasons I loved ‘The DUFF’ so much but I didn’t find Ryder and Sonny as easy to relate to.
So whilst my enjoyment of the book was marred by these, they were personal preferences. The story had all the elements that I loved in ‘The DUFF’ it was just a shame that I didn’t connect with the characters. I know a lot of people will love this story and the characters as they did with Bianca. But for me personally I’m going to stick with ‘The Duff’.