Lizzy Swift is a senior in high school, emerging from her nerd chrysalis to become a social butterfly. She starts dating popular Matt Ashley, whom she’s been pining for since freshman year. She’s delighted when rebellious new girl Claire Reynolds introduces her to Center City Philadelphia—clubs, street life, and the eye-opening art scene.
As Lizzy begins to question her own long-held dreams, the changes in her life mirror the upheaval of a decade marked by a drug epidemic and the AIDS crisis. She’s no longer sure of her Ivy League ambition. While she has a special connection with Matt, something’s missing. And Claire carries around a mysterious sadness and talks about a breakup so bad she changed schools—but she won’t tell the whole story. Lizzy wants Claire to confide in her, even as she keeps her own embarrassing secrets.
Before too long, the heady thrill of her new life starts to crumble under insecurities and deceptions. When the truth emerges from the wreckage, will it be too late for Lizzy, Claire, and Matt to save their love and friendships?
Tell Me No Lies, a companion to the acclaimed Be True to Me, is a novel of unflinching emotional honesty about secrecy, lies, love, and identity.
Published June 12, 2018 by Algonquin Young Readers
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*Thank you Algonquin Young Readers for a signed ARC at BookExpo
My Thoughts
I had the pleasure of meeting Adele Griffin at BookExpo, and just the quick interaction with her made me excited to read this book. While I didn't know much about it, she briefed me on it being about the 80s, and a young adult contemporary novel. What I didn't know, was all the varying subplots that would happen throughout the novel.
Lizzy is a strong character in the literary sense, but not so much in the plot. Griffin writes Lizzy in a way that it's clear to see her goals, motivation, and fears. She was a likeable character because she was relatable enough to the reader. As a teen, she is written extremely well, and her relationships with the other characters were concrete.
The only character relationship that I struggled to understand was Lizzy's relationship with Matt. The synopsis makes it seem as though Lizzy and Matt are together right away in the book, or it doesn't take them long to get to that point. This actually didn't happen until almost halfway into the book, and it lacked a lot of the build-up that could have made it more of the plot. Her relationship with Matt lacks any meaning and there's nothing that makes the reader want more scenes with them or wanting their relationship to progress. Any scenes with them seemed dull. Meanwhile, Lizzy's interactions with Claire are interesting and more exciting. Lizzy may be afraid to say certain things, but she's not afraid to think them. It's great to see the other perspective of what she's thinking as her friendship with Claire progresses.
Within this novel, there are so many different subplots going on. There's Lizzy's struggle with epilepsy, her desperate friendship with Claire, her struggling two best friends, her relationship with Matt, dealing with her parents and coming to be a teenager, struggling to get into college – the whole nine yards. It seems like a typical teenager, but in this case the book was too short to cover all these areas. Because there were so many subplots that were briefly touched upon here and there, they never really got to dive into certain areas that seemed interesting. Because of this, it seems like I was three-quarters of the way through the book before anything substantial even happened.
While I wanted to enjoy Tell Me No Lies, it kind of caused a slump for me. I read the first 100 pages, and then I was slightly confused as how nothing had happened yet. The characters are great, but I wish they could have done more because they had the potential to.
Stars: 3 out of 5
What I Liked: characters, great depiction of teenagers lives
What I Disliked: not much happened to make me want to pick it up
Such a nicely written, thorough review; I was going to buy this book but now I won't after that drag. Thanks for being honest even though you met the author!
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