Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney [eARC Review]

I received this novel as an advance copy from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I know, I know, this book came out in March and I should have read this eARC then. But better late than never, right? I’ve heard such good things about this book and I’m so glad to finally be reading it! Here are my thoughts:

Summary (Goodreads): My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me:
1. I’m in a coma.
2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore.
3. Sometimes I lie.
Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it’s the truth?

Review: It took me a while to get through this book, but I quite enjoyed it! However, I don’t think it necessarily lived up to all of the hype.

There are 3 different voices to the story: one is from the past, one is from the present, and the last is in the form of diary entries. The first two are from Amber’s perspective, however the diary entries are of a little girl whose identity is unknown. I thought this was an interesting way to tell the tale, and it was done quite well in that it generated a lot of intrigue.

I found the story moved a bit too slowly in the beginning for my taste, but the story started to pick up pace a little after the halfway point. It was around here that there were quite a few twists revealed. I quite liked the way they were introduced, as it brought a darker tone to the entire story and gave me that incentive to continue with the story.

The suspense continued all the way until the end, as more and more details were revealed. Even the ending has a little bit of a surprise to it.

I think the reason why this novel didn’t blow me away, considering all of the twists that were in the story, is that I had figured out quite a few of them. It’s not nearly as much fun to read a thriller when it pans out pretty much like you had imagined it would. Of course, if you hadn’t figured it out, then this novel might be more interesting to you.

I also didn’t love the writing style. I found it was a little … underwhelming in its tone; I wanted something fast-paced and full of darkness, but this was a little mellow. This novel went with a more subtle effect, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it didn’t work for me.

Overall, I liked this thriller. I thought it had a good amount of twists and turns and was quite different from other books in this genre. However, it didn’t blow me away. For those reasons, I’m giving it a solid 3/5 stars.

Happy reading ~

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