To be honest, I rather skimmed through it and it was good. I never felt completely taken in. It didn’t grip me like I would have liked but overall, a fine read.

Equal parts heartwarming and heart wrenching. This memoir speaks to those struggling themselves and to those who are caregivers to someone with progressive memory loss. Being your tissues!

A raw and gripping exploration of mental illness, memory, and the power of storytelling. Roberge's writing is brutally honest as he recounts his tumultuous journey through sex, drugs, and punk rock. The memoir offers a glimpse into the complexities of living with bipolar disorder and the challenges of maintaining relationships. "Liar" is a courageous and compelling memoir that invites readers on a deeply personal and introspective journey.

I'm sorry but this was one of the most, maybe the most, depressing book I have ever read. I kept reading, thinking eventually there would be a sense of continuity and recovery. Alas, not to be found in this book.

In aa meetings, I think this is called a drunkalogue. I would have gotten up and left if he hadn't found recovery in the first half of his talk. I frankly cannot find the value in this book unless someone was a drunk, addict and failure and just wanted to find someone else was as depressed as he is.

First off, I’d like to mention that the cover for this book fits the story perfectly, which always makes my bookish heart happy. In fact, the cover is what initially drew me to this title. After sitting in my NetGalley backlog for WAY too long, I finally decided to give it a go. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised with this book.

This memoir is Rob Roberge’s story of mental illness & addiction. Spanning his childhood through current times, Rob takes us on a wild ride that has been his life. To say that Rob has been through a few traumatic experiences would be an understatement. I think what is the most heartbreaking part is the reasoning behind Rob writing this memoir. Rob is showing early signs possible CTE, or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. If you are unfamiliar with CTE, basically it is a brain condition that can develop in someone that has suffered multiple concussions. CTE can cause dementia, behavior changes, depression, aggression, etc. Rob decided to write his memoir before he is potentially unable to do so. I cannot imagine learning that at some point I could lose my memories and all sense of who I am…

I don’t read many memoirs, but I can say that Liar was told in a very unique way. If you had told me going into this book that this was a memoir told in second person, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. Once I realized this book was in second person, I did NOT think this was going to work, but Roberge somehow pulls it off. The use of second person actually worked really well here and made me feel like I was inside the story. Another unique aspect about this memoir is that Liar is not told in a linear timeline, but rather jumps all over the place. Since this book dealt heavily with mental illness, addiction, and memory loss, the jumbled timeline made me feel a bit disoriented, which fit well with the subject matter. I know it doesn’t sound like this structure would work, but it just does somehow. I will admit, it was jarring at first, but if you can stick with it, it didn’t take long to adjust to the structure of the book.

This book would be very triggering for anyone suffering from alcoholism, drug addition, mental illness, depression, self harm and/or suicidal thoughts. If you struggle with any of these, I would probably skip this book because the author goes into a lot of depth with his own struggles in each of these areas.

If you are looking for a brutally honest, dark, & raw memoir that is told in a very creative way and tackles many hard topics, Liar is a must read! I don’t think this book is going to be for everyone, as many parts are difficult to read, but I could not stop reading this book.

***Content/trigger warning: alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness, depression, suicidal thoughts/attempts, & self harm***

*Big thanks to Crown Publishing for providing me with a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was fascinating to read. I'm left still wondering what is true and what was a lie as the author reveals that bits of previous stories were made up-- or lies he created over time. Living a life bi=polar, struggling with addiction and trying to live 'normally' is hard to comprehend. Author Roberge certain has led an adventurous, productive life with many more varied experiences than most of us would ever dream of accumulating.

Roberge tells his story in short vignettes, moving back and forth in time. The hopping and skipping through time helps develop a little chaos and frenzy for the reader. I suspect this is to attempt to create some understanding as to how his mind actually processes and remembers things. The grouping of thoughts into chapters do not necessarily work together as a theme but the writing and experiences are so fascinating that it is easy to open your mind and accept the body of work (and experiences) as a whole without clarification.

Fascinating reading.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book and can't stop thinking about it. LIAR is written in the second-person POV, which is very hard to pull off, but I felt that Roberge did it, and moreover, that it was the most effective choice for him to tell this true (true-ish? true story about lying?) story, because the "you" pulls in the reader and allows you to feel you're one with the narrator, which makes it more sympathetic.

I wasn't able to figure out an organizing principle for the parts of the story (that is, the sections of the book), although to me the short segments -- which jump from year to year -- hung together thematically, especially as the book went on. I gave myself over to just experiencing the book and found that the flow worked just fine for me.

Most of all, Roberge's fragmented storytelling style worked beautifully to convey the sensation of living inside his narrator's mind, which is burdened by addiction (past and present, in the times the narration describes), frequent traumatic brain injury/concussion, and bipolar disorder. The story wound up being revealing of the narrator's persona as well as the situation of being that person, which is the most important/interesting aspect of this type of memoir, to me.

I'm not necessarily a big reader of addiction stories, but I read this book on the heels of BLACKOUT by Sarah Hepola and JESUS' SON by Denis Johnson, so perhaps that influenced my reading, but I enjoyed this book very much. It's especially interesting for writers and readers engaged in fragmented text.

Five stars Review! I would definitely recommend this book.

Intense almost to the point it brought physical pain to me while reading it. I cannot imagine life addicted to drugs and pain while functioning with a mental illness. Vividly written. Emotionally charged. Roberge writes a memoir that would sound unrealistic even if it were to be labeled as fiction. It's a 3 star book for me because it has left me physically and emotionally drained. Much like life would be if I had to live one year in Rob's shoes.