The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

Booktalk

Isa, Thea, and Fatima receive a text from their friend and old schoolmate, Kate, that simply reads, "I need you." They haven't seen each other for years, but just like that, they all go to Kate, to The Reach. The Reach is Kate's house. It's in a marshy area not far from Salten House, the school where the girls did their fifth year together. That was seventeen years ago.

Isa and Fatima, the new girls boarding at Salten House, fell in easily with Kate and Thea and a little game that they played: The Lying Game.

The game has rules:
• Rule One: Tell a Lie
• Rule Two: Stick to Your Story
• Rule Three: Don't Get Caught
• Rule Four: Never Lie to Each Other
• Rule Five: Know When to Stop Lying

That year together was mostly a happy one. The mischievous girls would sneak out of school to spend time at The Reach. It became their sanctuary, and their friendship was a buffer against the personal problems that brought them to Salten House. They had each other. They had The Reach. They had the game.

Kate sends her text after a human bone is found in the marsh. They all know who that bone belongs to. After all, they were the ones who buried the body seventeen years ago. There will be questions from the police, but they have the rules to guide them. Rules One and Two: Tell a Lie and Stick to Your Story. They know nothing; they saw nothing. But Rule Three: Don't Get Caught, is becoming increasingly difficult. Someone else knows, and they're harassing Kate. As the women try to figure out who might know their secret, they begin to wonder if one of them is breaking Rule Four: Never Lie to Each Other. As for Rule Five: Know When to Stop Lying? Never.

Analysis and Criticism

Although sometimes bogged by repetition, this dark and disturbing mystery doesn't disappoint. It is told through Isa's point of view, and the plot flips between the present and school memories. The intensifying, plot-driven story has all the necessary tropes of a classic tragedy: foreshadowing, a mistake that can't be undone, a misunderstanding, an impulsive act, a fatal flaw, star-crossed romance, calamity and suffering, and a plot twist you won't see coming.

The call for diversity in literature is gaining momentum, and The Lying Game delivers Fatima, a Muslim, whose parents spend a year volunteering in Pakistan. (One assumes that the other characters are white and Christian.) Fatima's religion is not mere mention plopped in for the sake of heading the call for diversity, as some authors seem to do. Far from it. It forms Fatima's identity and her response to the problem.

Salten House, The Reach, and the marsh work together to provide a gothic setting. They create a forbidding and dangerous atmosphere that works metaphorically for the women's relationship and their ability to find a way through their problem. They spend their fifth year of school together at Salten House, a shabby, castle-like building. Presently, Kate's home, The Reach, has fallen into disrepair, and it is sinking because it is not built on solid bedrock. The shifting marsh makes it difficult to navigate for sometimes it's hard to know if one's foot placement will set them on stable ground or oozing, slippery mud. Finally, it's hard to see the path when trekking through the daytime fog and nighttime darkness.

This dark and intensifying mystery will keep the pages turning.

Smart mystery
Interesting characters
Emotionally compelling
Fast paced
Good read!

After reading and thoroughly enjoying in a dark dark wood and also enjoying woman in cabin 10, but not asmuch as Ms Wares first I had high expectations for this book. It was a good, fast paced read but I didn't devour it like the first. I would really call this a psychological thriller. Drama/Mystery more so.

I was very excited to dig into this mystery and was hoping for lots of twists and turns with such a promising title and premise. Meh...it ended up being just okay. It was a fast read and held my interest but the characters were one dimensional and the story wasn't as dark and twisty as I had hoped. Mystery lovers with expectations in check may want to give it a try.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a complimentary digital review copy of this book.

When Kate texts "I need you," Isa, Fatima, and Thea know they must drop everything and rush back to the small seaside town they left in disgrace all those years before. Tied together by a dangerous secret and a vow to never lie to each other, they fear the past is washing back up on shore, a past that may ruin their presents. As Isa remembers her brief time at the private school she is exiled to and the events leading to their biggest lie, the women are threatened by an unknown player who could ruin everything.

Not quite as thrillings her previous two novels, still a fine and quick summer read. I wish more time was spent exploring some of the other characters besides the four main girls or if the reader was given another POV besides Isa's. I did feel the depictions of Isa's new motherhood and the fear/love she has for her six-month-old daughter were very accurate, especially the complete and utter lack of personal space new nursing mother's have. Ware captured that claustrophobia and sense of pride very well.

I'm a huge Ruth Ware fan so I was prepared to enjoy this book and of course I did! I'm also a sucker for books that take place at a school so the backstory of Salten was fascinating as well. Four friends, separated for seventeen years, reconvene when the mysterious text, "I need you" reaches them all. Bound by secrets and lies, the four women must puzzle out their next moves as the past threatens to destroy the lives they have created for themselves (and of course, hidden from their families). Even though you may figure out The Secret before the end, it is Ware's trademark to keep you guessing everything. A very satisfying read!

This book doesn't quite live up to its potential. All the ingredients are there for a good suspense/murder mystery, but characters are not fleshed out enough and the past story is given too little time and attention. Not as good as The Woman in Cabin 10 or In a Dark Dark Wood

4 young girls in boarding school made a pact to be friends forever. The basis of their friendship was tying to their teachers, friends and family but never to each other. When Isa gets a text from Kate that says I need you she drops everything and packs up her new baby and heads to help her. Thea and Fatima are also on their way. How could 1 lie in their past lead to this point. The women must confront their guilt and the role they played in this thriller. I think this is Ruth Ware's best book so far. The characters are well defined and very real.

Isa, Fatima, Thea, and Kate have been best friends since they first met at boarding school. For a time, they were inseparable- sharing new experiences, secrets, and the game of lies- where anyone besides their close quartet was fair game for deception.
Eventually, though, the game ends with a lie so big that it tears them apart even while it binds their loyalty. Expelled and taken away from each other, time passes and the girls try to bury the lie and build lives for themselves- until years later when Kate calls her friends to warn them that the truth is threatening to come to light.
Fans of Ware's thrillers will not be disappointed with her latest novel, which ekes out the truth through past and present timelines. Many characters will come under suspicion, clues will be examined, and shocking secrets will be revealed, all while the reader enjoys every page.

While I enjoyed this book, I found it to be a little over dramatic. The author tends to focus on one thing in her books, but it is not something that is important to me. In her last book, it was the identity of the missing girl, which seemed very over dramatic and blown out of proportion (she just met the girl, who cares who she is?!). In this one, the mystery did end up being flushed out better than her last book, but it was still misleading as to why the three other girls, who had not spoken to Kate in YEARS, would care if she needed help. The book did seem to drag on and repeat itself, but I did enjoy the mystery and the ending wasn't what I was expecting.

Lies are nothing but trouble, but are they sometimes necessary as a means of protection? Perhaps. This wasn't necessarily a thriller, but a well told story of friendship, loyalty and searching out the truth.

This is the third novel of Ruth Ware that I've read. I picked her first up from the shelf at the library based on the cover and book flap. I devoured it. It reminded me a lot of books that I enjoyed reading growing up. Her sophomore attempt wasn't my favorite, but I still read it quickly.

It's hard not to compare this book to her first two.. because it's not so much of a "thriller" as it is a feeling of cold dread. Four friends gather at one's request.. and things are not what they seem. These girls were involved in something in their past, and Ruth Ware does a great job of teasing what happened.

This book moved slowly, especially through the first half. But it was necessary to establish the characters and their relationships to one another. This may bother some readers, because here Ware departs from her previous two books.

All in all, I think that this is the best book that Ruth Ware has written yet and I will pick up anything she writes from here on out.

*Thanks go to Netgalley for providing an ARC for me to read. I was not compensated for this review and all thoughts and ideas are my own.*

Ruth Ware does it again with thrilling suspense and a surprise ending.

The Lying Game, by Ruth Ware, kept me eagerly reading until I finished within a 24 hour time period. Her writing style resulted in descriptive characters, who were easy to become involved with. Thinking about my school days, I asked myself how much would I lie to protect my best friends, which is what Kate, Isa, Thea, and Fatima had to do......seventeen years after they were out of school, with lives and families of their own. At what point, after mysterious bones wash up on the shores of their old school grounds, do the girls face their pasts and decide if they can continue living with their secrets. This book is a great read, full of action and characters you care about. You will be kept guessing right up to the end.

Isa Wilde, a lawyer and new mother, has left her youthful, boarding school days behind her, but it only takes one text to bring the past into her present: I NEED YOU. That one text from Kate lures Isa back into the world of Salten and into the lying game.

The Lying Game feels less like a thriller and more like a standard mystery, a slow-to-start mystery at that. The sinister, creepy atmospheres I anticipate from Ware are diluted or missing. The descriptions and dialogue, while beautiful, feel stretched—like maybe they are pulled too far?

The boarding school flashbacks are clever—Ware really is a brilliant writer, but I don’t particularly like any of her characters. To be fair, I haven’t liked any of Ware’s protagonists. Ware is so talented at crafting flawed characters, characters I can simultaneously relate to and dislike.

Fans of Ware’s other novels will enjoy this this one, but perhaps not as much. I will definitely read her next novel even if I am a tad disappointed in The Lying Game. Props to the cover design--very appealing!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy.

Isa Wilde is happy, in a loving relationship with a new baby, finds her life turned upside down by a text message from a classmate whom she hasn't seen for 15 years--not since Isa and her 3 closest friends were expelled from their boarding school in the wake of a scandal. Now the body of the long missing father of one of the girls has been found and the friends carefully constructed version of the events surrounding the man's disappearance.

Ruth Ware has done it again. As soon as I see one of her books out I grab it up and read it in a day. This novel is about 4 young woman who met up as teenagers at a boarding school. Kate, Fatima, Thea and Isa were a very close group of girls in school harboring a great secret. I enjoyed the way the secret was slowly unraveled in layers to let us in. The relationships between the young women was very realistic. There were a number of twists and turns slowly developing among the plot to keep the reader in suspense. I would actually like Ruth Ware to write another novel with these 4 characters as I found myself very attached to them while reading the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It had me either perplexed, or guessing the wrong outcome until the very end. A few character decisions (mostly those of Isa in relation to some situations she put her child in) seemed fairly unlikely to me, that is the only reason I would give this book 4 stars instead of 5.

Ruth Ware has done it again! If this is your first Ware book, you'll be excited and intrigued by Fatima, Kate, Thea, and Isa's high school days and their present-day lives. For fans who already love her, The Lying Game won't disappoint! When Kate's father, who doubled as their art teacher, commits suicide while they're still teenagers, the boarding school they attended made assumptions about their relationship with him in and out of school. Years later, when the four of them are living separate lives, Kate sends an ominous text that reunites them in her home (a character in its own right), and forces them to go back to the night in high school that changed their lives forever. For those who don't like gruesome mysteries or thrillers that disturb you for awhile, rest assured, this one will keep you reading but won't give you weeks of nightmares!

I guess Ware's books tend to be more of slow burns, but this one was a bit too slow for me. I think her first two were better. 2.5 stars.