3.5 stars

It's me, back again reading another book about rich people doing bad things to each other. I know, I'm surprised, too. We've already been over my fondness for Gossip Girl et al, but knowing "Liar's Beach" is also an Agatha Christie retelling, I had to pick it up.

Linden, a lax-playing teen on scholarship at a fancy boarding school, is staying with his rich friend Jasper's family for the summer at Martha's Vineyard. He's desperate to seem as cool & carefree as the rest of them--especially Jasper's sister, Eliza--even when (as usual) things aren't always what they seem. After someone is found unconscious in the pool, Linden & his childhood friend, Holiday, decide to (in Linden's words) "LARP an attempted murder in order to spend time together". Of course, everyone is a suspect, culminating in a dramatic hurricane party where everyone is locked in a house together, a la "Bodies Bodies Bodies".

It's not groundbreaking, but I read it in a day & had a good time. There were moments where Linden reminded me of Leo from "Stargirl" with how he viewed both Eliza & Holiday (manic pixie dream girl vibes) but the behavior was called out, making it a refreshing angle on the trope & also almost making me spit my drink out:

"You've spent the last week projecting every Daisy Buchanan fantasy you have onto this girl & now you can't even consider the fact that you might be wrong about her, because your entire worldview will come crashing down like some sad house of cards & you'll have to shoot yourself in the head to cope with it. I've read that book already, in ninth-grade Honors English. It was boring then too."

The line-by-line writing was a blast; I highlighted a ton that made me snort & may have liked the author's voice more than the story itself. The main mystery was solved, but there were some backstory elements about Linden that weren't clarified that make me wonder if there will be a sequel. I'd have preferred a longer standalone that tied everything together, but I'll check out a book 2 if there is one.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, & the author for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review of “Liar’s Beach”.

Liar's Beach
by Katie Cotugno
Pub Date: 02 May 2023
This was a fun, fast thriller just in time for summer!
Michael Linden-just Linden to his friends- is ready for his summer break away from his prep school where he is one of the only students who doesn't live the rich lifestyle, but none of his friends know that. He keeps his poverty a secret from all his megarich peers.
His roommate/best friend invites him to stay with his family at their uber-rich beach house for most of the summer. He'd love to live how the other half lives for a bit, so he takes him up on the offer. As the summer progresses, Linden is shocked to see how the other half truly live: wasteful, rude or dismissive to the help, and incredibly entitled. They also have secrets, and lots of them. When a former friend turned family enemy is found face down in their pool, Linden is forced to face the truth, one of these people did it, and no one is really concerned about it.
In comes his long-lost childhood friend Holiday, who is also well-to-do. But Holiday is different, she cares. And she seems to be the only other person who doesn't believe this was a freak accident.
As they begin to look into the night of the drowning, suspicions arise, allegations are made, and friendships are destroyed. Truth is sometimes harder to handle than fiction.
#liarsbeach #netgalley #katiecotugno

Would recommend for fans of…
👙 Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot
👙 Nancy Drew
👙 Teen detectives
👙 Jessica Goodman mysteries

Liar’s Beach is a prime example of why you should never judge a book by its cover. Thanks to the bikini on the cover, I picked this one up expecting a soapy teen drama filled with gossip and rich girls behaving badly and instead got a modern, YA take on an Agatha Christie novel.

The mismatch between the story and the cover was actually a great thing because I was so surprised by how things played out and once I caught on to the fact that it was an homage to Christie’s mysteries, it was fun to spot all of the allusions and references Cotugno wove in. The novel has a male narrator who is not the detective, which I found unique as it was interesting to watch the detective solve the mystery from another character’s POV. I did find myself wanting a few more scenes with Holiday, the detective, and would not complain if this novel sparked a new series.

The late-summer setting makes this a perfect beach/pool read, so save this to your TBR for summer reads!

Liar’s Beach is out now. Thanks to Delacorte and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was enjoyable enough, and the characters were okay often privileged teens in books are a hit or miss for me and unfortunately, these ones were a miss. I found the story and characters reminded me so much of we were liars so if you were a fan of that one then I would give this one a chance as well. now for what I did enjoy, I liked the fun mystery and how reminiscent it was of Agatha Christie although it wasn't the most complex it did still keep me interested and turning the pages.

This was a quick, short read and I'm sorry to say didn't stand out to me in any way. I read a lot of mysteries and I love Agatha Christie, and this one was just okay in my opinion. I didn't feel connected to the main character in the way I would've liked and didn't come to care about the outcome of the mystery. I'm not sure if there will be a follow up book, but I probably won't be picking it up. Thank you so much for the opportunity!!

May 22, 2023
This is a good, quick summer YA read. It feels a bit similar to WE WERE LIARS so I found that appealing. The story centers around a young prep school student (Linden) who also happens to be a star athlete and a scholarship student. His roommate at school, Jasper, is the scion of a very prominent family who summers on The Cape. Linden spends a few weeks of his summer with Jasper's family. In the middle of all of the flirting and partying someone ends up unconscious in the family swimming pool and all the secrets of Jasper, Linden, and their friends and family are revealed.

I liked this book, primarily because it's a fast-paced, twisty read, The setting is perfect for the season (summer), and the author does a great job of gradually revealing different layers of each character's back story/secrets. I loved Linden's friend Holiday and felt that the addition of her character balanced out the book nicely. I am giving LIAR'S BEACH a 4/5 because I felt the ending was abrupt and flat. 9th grade and up. Many thanks to @netgalley and @penguinrandomhouse for the ARC.

A really good YA thriller!

This was a quick read and I couldn’t put it down. I think if you go into this one with the reminder that it’s a YA book, it hits the mark. Is it a bit outlandish? Yes. But overall I still enjoyed it.

I tried so many times to get into this book. But I just could not get into it. Maybe it was the narrator? I kept falling asleep. And every time I had to rewind it and figure out where I was I kept wondering when the mystery started. An hour in some change in and it was still introducing characters. Could also be because Agatha Christie was a racist and I didn't exactly care that I was DNFing a book that was based on ANOTHER of her titles.

Rich kids behaving badly in Martha’s Vineyard and throw I some Agatha related feelings and twists to it? I was all in for this fun summer read.

Liar's Beach is a YA Mystery, told from Linden's perspective. The synopsis states that this is a retelling of an Agatha Christie story. I've never read the original so I can't comment on the similarities. The "detective" character is a girl named Holiday, an old friend of Linden's. The beginning of the book was pretty slow and I wasn't really into the rich kids at the beach house vibe. The second half of the book seemed to focus more on the mystery and that's when I got interested in it. I liked Holiday and who Linden was when he was around her, for the most part. The book just seemed kind of shallow even though there are parts of the storyline with the theme that even rich kids have problems. I didn't feel like that was developed enough though. I think this could be a good book for a high schooler who enjoys mysteries.
3.5 stars

Gossip Girl meets We Were Liars meets something else entirely. This was fast paced, riveting, and hard to put down. I enjoyed the main character, though I found him frustrating at times. The twist at the end was not so shocking, but this was still a wild ride.

I am no stranger to a DNF or terrible, unlikeable characters, but I held out hope that maybe the mystery would pay off in the end. It didn't.

I am always skeptical when reading a Christie retelling, as they usually do not go well. However, recently I have stumbled across some great ones. Liar's Beach is a modern retelling of the Mysterious Affair at Styles. It has been some time since I read it, but I know this did not do it justice.

I gravitate toward unlikeable characters. Morally gray is my favorite color, but these people are just terrible for the sake of being terrible. They aren't even interesting. The dialogue was cringe. The mystery was absolutely unremarkable. I think my CW era is over.

This had such an interesting premise, but unfortunately it fell a little flat for me. I really liked the setting - the whole sleepy beach town that felt removed from the real world, and I like that the POV all be in from the outsider's perspective. I do think the mystery was a little weak, and while I didn't really see the twist coming, I think that some of the conclusions made to get to that point were a little far fetched, even in the scope of a mystery novel. However, I probably would have still rated this higher if all the characters weren't completely insufferable. I honestly didn't really care for any of them, and maybe that was part of the point, but even Linden (the MC) was really annoying. It's funny because I sort of got Catcher in the Rye vibes at times with Linden trying to fit in, but I love Catcher in the Rye and Holden, and I struggled so much with Linden, and I am not totally sure why I even really compared them. I also hate how there is this whole side mystery (not really a mystery but clearly kept from the reader) with Greer and the accident they were in, but not only do we not find out about it, it's only used as a plot device to set up for a possible sequel, which is very annoying. Overall, this was fine, but not my favorite.

Katie Cotugno's book have gone downhill for me for sometime now. She needs to stick to the fluffy rom-com. All the characters were assholes and the mystery wasn't interesting at all.

Liar's Beach was a fun story! It had a good mix of character development and mystery and will make the perfect summery beach read for a day at the beach or lake!

This was a fun twist on Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Loved that Poirot was recast as teenage sleuth Holiday, but the rest of the characters were unlikable and insufferable. That was likely on purpose, but still anytime anyone other than Holiday was in the scene, I found myself skimming the text for the next mention of H.

Thank you to Netgalley, Random House Children’s, Delacorte Press, and Katie Cotugno for allowing me to read an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book for an honest review.

Liar’s Beach was made available to the public this past Tuesday, May 2, 2023.

A modern day Sherlock Holmes and Watson duo in a setting and plot reminiscent of Agatha Christie.

For the Kendrick family, life is always grand. They vacation at their beach house, lovingly known as August House, every summer. They own three luxury cars. The kids attend elite and top notch schools. The parents are no longer in love with one another but they set a good example by cohabitating respectfully (sometimes with the help of alcohol and prescription medication).

Jasper Kendrick invites his boarding school roommate, Michael Linden, to the beach house to spend time with his friends and family. Linden learns quickly that Jasper hasn’t opened up and been forthcoming with information about his family. One night, the kids throw a party at August House and a former friend, and current enemy ends up injured.

Linden is reconnected with his childhood best friend at the beach that summer and they immediately begin putting their sleuthing skills to the test to help solve the crime. Will they be able to do so without causing harm to themselves, to others, and to the relationships they’ve established over the Pat few years?

What I liked:
💕 Holiday, a strong and independent female lead.
💕 The inner struggle that Michael has with wanting to fit and wanting to feel comfortable in his own authentic skin.
💕 The ethical dilemmas that each character is faced with.
💕 The setting(s). The beach and the pool made for great settings throughout the story.
💕 The storyline held my attention and kept me guessing.

I would recommend this book to anyone that:
✅ loves a YA Thriller.
✅ enjoys a story about rich (and entitled) boarding school teens.
✅ is looking for a quick summer poolside or Oceanside read.
✅ enjoys teen sleuths attempting to solve a crime.

#LiarsBeach #NetGalley

This was a fun mystery that I liked, but I did not love. I would have loved a little more mystery and more connection with the characters, I honestly didn't like any of them.
A group of rich kids spending the last weeks of summer at Martha's Vineyard when one of their enemies is found face down in the backyard pool. The main question.. Who is responsible for this?

Liar's Beach is a cross between We Were Liar's, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, and They Wish They Were Us, without any of the charm of those books. While I will admit, I didn't see the twist coming, it wasn't satisfying. Instead, it felt more like a cop out.

The writing style isn't anything to admonish and the pacing is fine at best. I definitely did not love this book, but it was an easy and generally "okay" read. If you can find this book second-hand or on sale, I'd say pick it up, but I wouldn't pay full-price for it.

This was a well done YA homage to Agatha Christie and as a fan of Cotugno's Birds of California last year I was impressed by her YA mystery writing as well. I can't help but love books with privilege and wealth themes, sassy smart teen girls, and a solid well executed mystery. I loved the details in the writing, the way Cotugno can set a stage/scene and give depth to her characters; this is important in YA and in mysteries, even when the plot might be the star.