Disclaimer: I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: This is Why We Lie

Author: Gabriella Lepore

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 3/5

Recommended For...: young adult readers, thriller, mystery, dark academia

Publication Date: September 21, 2021

Genre: YA Thriller

Recommended Age: 15+ (murder, violence, gore, drug use, kidnapping, language)

Explanation of CWs: Murder, slight violence, and slight gore are throughout the book. There is drug use mentioned and shown. There is one kidnapping scene. And there’s some language in the book.

Publisher: Inkyard Press

Pages: 320

Synopsis: When Jenna Dallas and Adam Cole find Colleen O'Dell's body floating off the shore of their coastal town, the community of Gardiners Bay is shaken. But even more shocking is the fact that her drowning was no accident.

Once Jenna's best friend becomes a key suspect, Jenna starts to look for answers on her own. As she uncovers scandals inside Preston Prep School leading back to Rookwood reform school, she knows she needs Adam on her side.

As a student at Rookwood, Adam is used to getting judgmental looks, but now his friends are being investigated by the police. Adam will do whatever he can to keep them safe, even if that means trusting Jenna.

As lies unravel, the truth starts to blur. Only one thing is certain: somebody must take the fall.

Review: For the most part I thought this was fairly well done. The book had good world building and I loved the dark academia vibes. I also liked the plot of the book for the most part.

However, I did feel like the book had a few issues. The characters weren’t well developed and it was hard to connect with them. The pacing was super slow and it was hard to keep reading. The flashbacks were awkwardly placed. And it was predictable in the end. Overall, the book is kinda clunky and needs a bit more work.

Verdict: It was ok.

This Is Why We Lie by Gabriella Lepore jumped out at me right away because it had to do with boarding schools and Prep schools. I don’t know what it is about them, but they always have the best twisted tales and teenagers trying to cover for themselves. I knew I had to read it.

The story follows a few kids, Jenna, Adam, Max, Serena, Hollie, Imogen, and Brianna to name most. The girls are from a Prep school nearby. The boys are at a reform boarding school nearby. And then a teenager winds up murdered. Of course everyone is a suspect to start. The story jumped right in from the first page. There was no slow grow. We were in the thick of the mystery right from the start. I liked how Lepore didn’t make us drag on to get there. It made the story feel interesting and gripping right away.

I quite enjoyed the array of characters. This story jumped from before the murder to after the murder and as it jumps back you get to learn more and more about each character. We see everything from Jenna and Adam’s points of view. We learn about their relationships with the others and it had me constantly changing my guess on what really happened. As the plot thickens and more drama and murder occur, I was literally completely at a loss for who the bad guy was.

The only thing that really bothered me about this story was that I felt it slowed down in the middle a bit. From about 40% to 60% there wasn’t as much action and it kind of tapered off a little for me. I wanted it to hold the momentum it started with. With that said, I will say it quickly picked up at the 60% mark and flowed very intensely through to the end, which BLEW MY MIND. I was absolutely not prepared for that ending and Lepore gets a huge applause for keeping me guessing.

This Is Why We Lie gave me very One of Us is Lying vibes. That same youthful vibe full of secrets, twists, and guesses. The suspense was not overpowering, but held you in place turning pages until the very end. I would highly recommend this novel to YA Fiction and Mystery lovers. I tell you this. I will never send my child to boarding school if this is the chaos that ensues. Lepore did a fantastic job of keeping me on the edge of my seat.

Review: 4 Stars

I picked up a copy of This is Why We Lie because I’ve really been enjoying YA thrillers lately. There were a few things about this book that really intrigued me, but the boarding school setting for delinquent boys was a big draw for me. I didn’t really know what to expect going in, but I was in the mood for a thriller so I thought I’d give it a shot. I did not expect to love this book nearly as much as I did. This Is Why We Lie was a really fast paced read with a compelling plot.
I didn’t realize that This is Why We Lie was told in mixed media format. I really love mixed media books and have been a huge fan of them ever since reading Sadie. This is Why We Lie includes police interviews, newspaper articles, text messages and more. The mixed format really helps bring the whole story to life. I also really enjoyed all of the flashbacks because they really helped give a sense of the characters pasts.
The plot was really great. It kept me guessing right up until the very end. The pacing was really fast and kept me reading late into the night. The story included both Jenna and Adam’s points of views and the chapters would end on cliffhangers, which made me eager to get back to one point of view or another. I did find the motive behind the murder a little hard to believe though, but other than that I really enjoyed the entire book.
This is Why We Lie was a fast paced YA thriller that was told in mixed media format. I devoured the book in a less than two days in the middle of a very busy week. I really enjoyed this book and loved how it kept me guessing. I really got sucked into all the drama and tore through the book very quickly. I would recommend this to fans of YA thrillers, mixed media books and fast paced mysteries.

This is Why We Lie is a YA mystery that opens with the discovery of a dead body. It's told through the Jenna and Adam's points of view and waffle between the events leading up to the discovery on the beach and the aftermath. It was a little slow in the beginning, but about a third of the way through, it picked up.

I really enjoyed this one. It's full of secrets and twists and I did not guess the ending. I genuinely enjoyed the main characters Jenna and Adam. I felt invested and hoped for a positive outcome for both of them. There are a lot of secondary characters and I spent a lot of the book not knowing who to trust. I don't want to talk plot too much because it would spoil things. I'll just say I definitely recommend this one.

A solid but not perfect murder mystery that will appeal to fans of One of Us is Lying. There's a decent amount of suspense with a hard-to-discover killer, but it never reached the level of thriller for me. There's a little bit of a side romance which was sold pretty well in the story but felt weird to me considering the tight timeline and the fact that pretty much everyone is a suspect.

The characters and setting were fleshed out and felt believably real. I appreciated that the adult side characters weren't made out to be incompetent or bad guys overall even as it was highlighted how disconnected they were from the teens.

I'm never a good judge of thrillers/mysteries because I am pretty much always right about the murderer/bad guy which takes some of the suspense out of them for me, but This is Why We Lie was actually really fun and a decent puzzle to figure out. I did guess the killer early on, but all of the characters had enough motive and opportunity that I second-guessed myself until the end.

Overall, This is Why We Lie is a solid story that will appeal to mystery and thriller. It also has enough happening every chapter to keep even reluctant readers interested.

This was a YA mystery that would be a good pick for newer readers of the genre. There wasn’t anything terribly wrong with it, but it fell flat for me overal. The characters felt like cliches, the romance element was misplaced, and the plot was slower than I’d like. The twist was also not very twisty. That said, I’ve read a zillion mysteries and thrillers and it takes a lot to surprise me at this point, so younger readers will likely be more into this than me.

Also: this cover is fabulous!

A YA mystery thriller, the story starts with Jenna down at the waterfront photographing the sunrise when she sees a boy she knows slightly, Adam, dragging a body out of the water. It’s Colleen, a girl Jenna knows from school… and she’s dead. Murdered. And Jenna’s best friend Hollie had a public fight with Colleen just the day before in which Hollie threatened to kill Colleen. But surely Hollie couldn’t have gone through with it. Could she?

What follows is a delve into the secrets the good girls of Preston Prep have been keeping… sneaking around with the bad boys from Rookwood Reform School, the last stop before juvie. Adam’s a Rook, and he knows his friends are no angels. But none of them would have murdered Colleen. Would they?

Told in split POVs from both Adam and Jenna, this fell a little bit flat for me. The secrets everyone’s keeping are really terribly mundane, and I don’t think there was enough build up to the villain reveal at the end. Ever since I read the absolutely bat wild Private series by Kate Brian, a YA murder mystery has to have a fair bit of drama to hold my attention, and this one misses the mark I think by making both the POV characters a bit too goody-two-shoes. Give us some unreliable narration, or everything just lands a bit flat. It’s not badly written and the plot does hold together logically, but I don’t think there was a sufficient breadcrumb trail left pointing to the villain and the drama needed amping up - think more Gossip Girl than Gilmore Girls. This one felt a bit too much like the latter. Three stars.

A boarding school style mystery, This Is Why We Lie follows Jenna a student at the all girls school thanks to here mother's travel blog money and Adam a student at Rookwood, a school for troubled boys. When Jenna and Adam find one of Jenna's classmates dead, and her best friend becomes the prime suspect Jenna decide to solve this murder herself. Of course the Rookwood boys are the most suspicious, especially Max, who is dating another of Jenna's friends and one of Adam's best friends, but when he also winds up dead, Jenna begins to question everything and everyone.
The mystery was interesting enough that it kept me sucked into the story, but the characters and relationships all felt fairly shallow and superficial. I think this was what made it a little more difficult than usual for me to figure out who the murderer was. All of the characters felt so cold and nearly robotic that I felt like any one of them could easily have been a killer. Even our two main characters, Jenna and Adam, who have a lot more backstory, feel pretty one note.
Still a worth recommending murder mystery for fans of the boarding school setting.

I am a huge fan of mysteries/thrillers and this one did not disappoint! I read this in basically one sitting, it was that fast! It has dual POV, flashbacks, interview transcripts, all the stuff I love in a good YA mystery!

I found myself very curious about what happened and what was going to happen and I loved that every character had some sort of secret or motive to be the whodunnit. I also loved how all of the different characters’ stories were woven together more than even they may have realized! I will say that this was a rare occasion where I did NOT figure out the ending! And as you guys know, I am VERY good at predicting thriller endings!

If you are a fan of Pretty Little Liars or One of Us is Lying, I would definitely recommend this one!

This is a well-written mystery for young adults, but I would add mature young adults since the content is not for everyone. There is quite a bit of “hooking up” and expletives were used freely. Jenna is going to a private girls’ school in a small town, living with her aunt who is a police detective, when one of her friends is killed. When another friend is a suspect, Jenna starts investigating on her own, determined to find out who killed Colleen. There are two sets of teens who are the focus of the story. The girls are Serena, Imogen, Brianna, Hollie and Jenna, all friends who attend a school called Preston Prep. Then there are the bad boys who go to Rookwood, the boys’ private school that seems to be for the incorrigible throw-aways of society, the ones that their parents can’t or won’t control or who just don’t want to deal with them anymore. That group comprises Adam, Max, and Tommy. Of course, the girls are attracted to the bad boys and visit a cabin near the campus where they party together. The scene was well set for conflict since the kids were meeting outside of the bounds of acceptable behavior and they were doing things that their parents and the schools would not approve of. Therein lies the appeal to the younger generation since a central theme is rebellion against authority. The plot was complicated, but not so much so that it was not easy to follow. There were lots of red herrings along the way, as the story is told from the viewpoint of several of the main characters, especially Jenna and Adam. At first, I was not sure that they were reliable narrators because of their differing opinions about what had happened, but I discovered as I read that they were both reliable and accurate. They just saw things differently because they had their own perspective. With deep understanding of the teen psyche and what teens really need from life, this was a well done character study as well as a blockbuster of a mystery. I was guessing whodunit almost until the very end, and even then I was surprised by some of the revelations. Fans of YA mystery will enjoy this book and should enjoy discussing it with a book group or their parents since it brings so much information out about growing up and choosing friends wisely.
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255, “Guides Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”

I don't read many teen and young adult books, but This Is Why We Lie caught my attention, and I'm glad it did. The story is told from the points of view of Jenna and Adam, and we do get looks at the past as things move forward in the here and now. The writing style was a little different than I expected, but it completely works for the storyline and characters. The tension is really good and the whodunit kept me guessing. I enjoyed the twists and will definitely be checking out more of Gabriella Lepore's books. I realize that I've been vague, but this one deserves to be read spoiler-free, so I'll just say it's an entertaining read that I'd certainly recommend.

A solid YA thriller. I thought the plot and the pacing were the strengths. I liked the dual narration and the inclusion of text messages and newspaper articles. I do think that the characters could have been more fleshed out and the relationships among the characters more developed. This is definitely a quick read (and can even be read in one sitting), but I think with a little extra length for the character development, this book would have knocked it out of the park.

It’s no secret that I’m 58 years old and love to read young adult stories! THIS IS WHY WE LIE is the first book I’ve ever read by Gabriela Lepore and it definitely won’t be the last. The twists and turns keep coming and I had to know how it was going to end! Every time I thought I knew where this story was going, a few pages later, Ms. Lepore threw me for a loop and I knew I was wrong! I knew I was going to love this story just by the description. I kept trying to figure out who the killer was but each and every time, I was so wrong! Plan on not getting much sleep until you finish this suspenseful story!

THIS IS WHY WE LIE is a quick read and unputdownable! Jenna attends Preston Prep School and Adam attends Rockwood Reform School. Jenna is down by the beach taking pictures when she sees Adam struggling in the water. As she goes over to help him she sees its a body he has in his arms. It is one of her classmates, Colleen. Once she gets back to school she learns that one of her friends, Holly, is the prime suspect. If you are looking for a great story with lots of mystery and heart to pull you out of your book slump, you can’t go wrong with THIS IS WHY WE LIE. I’m so excited to read more by Gabriela Lepore as I have a few of her older books to still read.

The twists and turns in THIS IS WHY WE LIE are going to keep you up late into the night trying to figure out how this perfect story is going to end. Once you start reading, trust me, you aren’t going to be able to stop! If you haven’t read Gabriela Lepore, you are really missing out! Every single time Ms. Lepore publishes something new, I am going to want to have a celebration. I can’t wait to read more of her books and fall in love with every single word and all of her characters. THIS IS WHY WE LIE is exactly why. Hang on tight as you are reading! It’s a crazy and thrilling ride. When everything is finally revealed, well, you won’t believe it!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading THIS IS WHY WE LIE As Adam begins explaining things to Jenna, things seem to make more sense to her and have her questioning what really happened to Colleen. There is so much going on in this story, but Ms. Lepore does a wonderful job of weaving all the pieces together. All of the characters will have you feeling sad, then happy, and then yelling on the same page. More than once I wanted to be in Gardiners Bay with my new found friends! Once you finish devouring this story, you are going to want to tell everyone you know about this emotional and heartbreaking story!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Inkyard Press through Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I was hooked from the beginning. This is a young adult story that is full of mystery. Written from two points of view along with present and past time lines this story is a an interesting twist.
I really enjoyed how it was written. It had a quick and intense build. I didn't see a lot of the twists coming and it kept me on my toes. The characters were realistic and fit their ages for the story.

I highly recommend this story for young adult suspense and mystery fans.

I really loved this book, and I definitely recommend for YA mystery/thriller fans. Here are just some of the things that I adored about this book –

It’s a quick read, so it keeps you flipping the pages, desperate to piece the puzzle together.
It starts off with a bang and keeps going and going until the final page! No dull middles here.
I liked that we got both Jenna and Adam’s point of views. You get more of a well-rounded look at the investigation this way.
The title is so apt: This Is Why We Lie. Everyone is lying about something. It’s just not always murder.
I love that almost every character is a bit “gray”. Not to say most of them can be classified as a villain, but they all have something. Nobody is a saint here, but that doesn’t mean they deserve to die.
I flew through this book and I’m so glad I was given a chance to read and review it for you all! Hopefully you’ll take my advice and grab a copy; it comes out tomorrow!

This is Why We Lie makes for compulsive reading, as you race through the pages, desperately trying to piece everything together.

Lepore very quickly establishes that the stakes here are high and no one is truly safe. The opening of this book is so impactful and shocking that from there on, I knew I was gripped. Straight away, you’ve got a dead body on your hands and things will only get worse from there. That kind of taut suspense is exactly my kryptonite and I spent the next few house just speeding through. Luckily, Lepore has some excellent twists and turns up her sleeve. This is definitely a page turner that will keep you up until you’ve discovered every last secret embedded in these tantalising pages. I loved the entire atmosphere and how it felt more and more claustrophobic. You could practically feel the pressure closing in on our protagonists.

I really loved following both Jenna and Adam’s perspectives. They often undermined and contradicted each other, with several key elements only gradually being revealed. This gave the book an unreliable feel, which is even more addictive. It forces the reader to take on that detective role and even begin to question the people whose voices you’re following along. For me, this always pulls me into the story even more and starting to frantically uncover every last secret. There’s plenty of secrets buried here, with tiny details being expanded into key information by the final page. Lepore’s pacing was also immaculate, with the speed picking up at just the right time. It almost felt like the beginning of an avalanche, with the boom way off in the beginning, but you are definitely caught up in the deadly chaos by the end.

This is Why We Lie is a solid addition to the YA mystery canon that feels exciting, highly entertaining and constantly creative.

This was a really fun ya mystery. I really enjoyed how fast paced it was and how the plot progressed. I liked Jesse and Adam enough but I cared much more who did it than the two of them. I also didn't care a lot for all the side drama in the book, though I'm sure a younger audience will appreciate it. I thought the ending was great and I didn't guess the culprit until close to the end. Overall I really enjoyed this one.

The community is shaken after Jenna Dallas and Adam Cole find the body of Colleen O’Dell, floating off the shore of their coastal town.

But this is not the case of an accidental drowning. This is a murder.

Jenna’s best friend becomes a key suspect, and Jenna, believing her friend’s innocence, begins investigating boys at a local reform school.

Did Colleen know a secret and now someone succeeded in keeping her quiet?

Such a fun young adult murder mystery that kept me entertained with all of the twists and flashbacks through the story! I was trying to guess the murderer the whole time, and I STILL did not get it right until the very end!

Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

TW: murder, attempted murder, drugs & alcohol.

I had theories during this book, and the first one made me mad because I was like, "Please say it's not gonna be this obvious?!" but it was a red herein, and then after the SECOND body was found, I had to really dig in, that was what made we love this book.
The characters' background was very intriguing, the whois it was done well, the tragic and the inspection was perfect!
The ONLY downfall was how I was still able to guess the killer after my first suspect was cleared, and the fact that even though Jenna and Adam had met quite a lot, they were played off in the beginning as almost strangers when they had history, that confused me.

The Review

A truly gripping and engaging thriller for YA and murder-mystery fans, author Gabriella Lepore has crafted a mind-bending tale of suspense and secrets that readers will not be able to help to fall into. The twists and turns that this novel takes both for the characters and the narrative itself are truly captivating, and the author does a fantastic job of setting up solid pacing to peel back the layers of this mystery one by one.

The growth of the characters was what drew me into the narrative, to begin with. The emotional depth that both protagonists have gone through in their pasts, and how these two young people who have had to learn to trust only themselves and have experienced hard family lives make their way to one another in the midst of great tragedy was so enthralling and mesmerizing to see unfold and really tugged at the heartstrings as well. This in turn really balanced out the emotional beats with the suspense and drama of this murder mystery and small-town life.

The Verdict

Pretty Little Liars meets Riverdale, author Gabriella Lepore’s “This Is Why We Lie” is a must-read YA Mystery of 2021! Perfectly crafted and shocking as the final reveal of the killer is shown, this novel delivers powerful characters that readers might be able to relate to, and a great exploration of both the contrast and similarities people from different walks of life can truly have.