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feldy's review
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
serendipity_viv's review
5.0
Originally posted on www.serendipityreviews.co.uk
After reading this book, I can see why Katie Dale’s writing came so highly recommended to me. This book the tightest plot I’ve ever read. Nothing is wasted – every conversation, every action and every expression used are essential to the plot of the book. It’s one of those books that on finishing reading it, you find yourself wanting to pick to pieces to work out how the author made it so utterly brilliant.
The characters have interesting twists to them. No one is what they seem. Everyone has hidden secrets and excellent masks to hide behind. The author shows that nothing in life can be categorised as black or white. Society has been created from a kaleidoscope of colour. The author has displayed clearly that the human race are far from perfect. Yet these characters are accepting of the flaws of others. They love each other at their best, but are also accepting of each other at their worse.
I loved the friendship between Christian and Lou.They had so much stacked up against them. There is a line in the final chapter that really broke me and had me tears. It was a simple sentence made up of just four words and yet it just summed up the relationship between these two characters and really moved me.
As the story unfolds little by little, you find out snippets about each character that you are surprised to discover. The author keeps you on your toes right till the last page. I couldn’t put this book down. I had to find out the truth and searched through the pages for the answers I so desperately needed.
The subject matter of this book is extremely topical and shows intriguing glimpses of issues that have hit the headlines in recent years. Due to the well hidden nature of the plot, I can’t divulge any of them in this review.
This is a strong, compelling tale that makes you think. A fast paced, thrilling rollercoaster of emotions. A book I will be shouting about from the rooftops.
After reading this book, I can see why Katie Dale’s writing came so highly recommended to me. This book the tightest plot I’ve ever read. Nothing is wasted – every conversation, every action and every expression used are essential to the plot of the book. It’s one of those books that on finishing reading it, you find yourself wanting to pick to pieces to work out how the author made it so utterly brilliant.
The characters have interesting twists to them. No one is what they seem. Everyone has hidden secrets and excellent masks to hide behind. The author shows that nothing in life can be categorised as black or white. Society has been created from a kaleidoscope of colour. The author has displayed clearly that the human race are far from perfect. Yet these characters are accepting of the flaws of others. They love each other at their best, but are also accepting of each other at their worse.
I loved the friendship between Christian and Lou.They had so much stacked up against them. There is a line in the final chapter that really broke me and had me tears. It was a simple sentence made up of just four words and yet it just summed up the relationship between these two characters and really moved me.
As the story unfolds little by little, you find out snippets about each character that you are surprised to discover. The author keeps you on your toes right till the last page. I couldn’t put this book down. I had to find out the truth and searched through the pages for the answers I so desperately needed.
The subject matter of this book is extremely topical and shows intriguing glimpses of issues that have hit the headlines in recent years. Due to the well hidden nature of the plot, I can’t divulge any of them in this review.
This is a strong, compelling tale that makes you think. A fast paced, thrilling rollercoaster of emotions. A book I will be shouting about from the rooftops.
kesau's review
5.0
KEPT ME READING TIL I FINISHED THE ENTIRE THING(which was 6hrs w/ the break of dinner). It had the perfect mystery and romance in it which I have come to love in a book so much. This book will forever be one of my favorites!!
martha_sammut's review
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
razreads's review
5.0
What a read! The book is phenomenal with well developed characters and such a seamless plot, despite the innumerable twists and turns. The countless cliffhangers add to the atmosphere and encourage you to just keep on reading. A storyline unlike so many others, crafted to perfection.
acourtofpaperdreams's review
2.0
2.5 - 2.75
I started off hating it, then I liked it, then I sorta liked it.
The writing style didn't appeal to me, it felt forced and like a monologue.
There were too many plot twists.
I also hated Lou, you don't love this guy, you just met him a week ago.
AND HOW DO YOU DYE YOUR HAIR FROM BLACK TO BROWN TO RED TO GRAY IN 2 DAYS???
I started off hating it, then I liked it, then I sorta liked it.
The writing style didn't appeal to me, it felt forced and like a monologue.
There were too many plot twists.
I also hated Lou, you don't love this guy, you just met him a week ago.
AND HOW DO YOU DYE YOUR HAIR FROM BLACK TO BROWN TO RED TO GRAY IN 2 DAYS???
downwtheflu's review
3.0
i read this book a long time ago but didn't put it on goodreads.
this book, so good, suspenseful, i loved it.
update:
I'm just gonna keep this short. This is my first reread of the year. This is a suspenseful and mysterious book, but it was more of romance, and about trusting somebody. When you are living a lie, when you have nobody to count on, can you trust them? After rereading this book, i realized that lou is not a very nice main character. She could stand to lie to christian after everything, and had literally no urge to tell him the truth. She didn't feel the need to tell christian the truth for the sake of their relationship. She only told him the truth when she thought her gran was going to expose her. If not for that scene, she probably would have lied to christian, till their grave?
That was one part I felt should have been added in, but wasn't.
Other than that, this story was perfectly crafted, in the sense where every character had its own backstory. How christian was conveniently late, uncle jim conveniently hitting poppy and tariq in all the bad places and making them seriously injured. I felt that it could be better written.
The romance was also rather complex, since we know that lou was keeping another identity and christian was on the run. She pretended to be interested in him, and it worked quite well, and that was kind of a twist. But later, she isn't sure of her own feelings which is kind of dumb, because she keeps getting easily influenced by all these people around her, and calls the cops, and then regrets it. As for christian, I don't understand why he comes back looking for her, since she lies to him most of the time, till he probably doesn't even know what he likes about her.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the times where both of them are together, even though I know most of them aren't real feelings.
Still, when I first read it, it got me through a difficult time, and I enjoy the comfort and nostalgic feelings reading this book gave me, and I enjoyed it very much.
Thank you, Katie Dale, for this book full of twists, suspense and love.
this book, so good, suspenseful, i loved it.
update:
I'm just gonna keep this short. This is my first reread of the year. This is a suspenseful and mysterious book, but it was more of romance, and about trusting somebody. When you are living a lie, when you have nobody to count on, can you trust them? After rereading this book, i realized that lou is not a very nice main character. She could stand to lie to christian after everything, and had literally no urge to tell him the truth. She didn't feel the need to tell christian the truth for the sake of their relationship. She only told him the truth when she thought her gran was going to expose her. If not for that scene, she probably would have lied to christian, till their grave?
That was one part I felt should have been added in, but wasn't.
Other than that, this story was perfectly crafted, in the sense where every character had its own backstory. How christian was conveniently late, uncle jim conveniently hitting poppy and tariq in all the bad places and making them seriously injured. I felt that it could be better written.
The romance was also rather complex, since we know that lou was keeping another identity and christian was on the run. She pretended to be interested in him, and it worked quite well, and that was kind of a twist. But later, she isn't sure of her own feelings which is kind of dumb, because she keeps getting easily influenced by all these people around her, and calls the cops, and then regrets it. As for christian, I don't understand why he comes back looking for her, since she lies to him most of the time, till he probably doesn't even know what he likes about her.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the times where both of them are together, even though I know most of them aren't real feelings.
Still, when I first read it, it got me through a difficult time, and I enjoy the comfort and nostalgic feelings reading this book gave me, and I enjoyed it very much.
Thank you, Katie Dale, for this book full of twists, suspense and love.
thebookishraven's review
5.0
Review also posted on The Bookish Raven
Was this book ever a wild ride! Mystery isn't a big like for me, but I thought I'd take a chance with this one because the e-reader preview intrigued me so much. And let me tell you how glad I was to do it. Little White Lies is so full of twists and turns that I was constantly on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what was going to happen next.
I can't write much of a detailed review about this lest I give anything away, but I'll talk you through the basics. Lou meets Christian when she's in university and she's determined to be with him. But this story isn't only about that. Strange things start happening around Christian. Someone frames him for a break-in at his job, he doesn't want to go out with Lou in the evening and it seems that someone is out to get him. This leads us to the first twist.
Katie Dale's writing in Little White Lies is extraordinary. It's subtle. There's never any info-dumping, even if this story in a lesser writer's hands could've been a disaster in that field. The reader's find things out at the same time as the character does, or only when we need to to understand the story. Nothing is revealed too soon or too late and nothing gets confusing, even after the story takes about twenty twists and turns into territory you didn't think it would. Sometimes with stories like this, it's hard to keep track of everything that's going on but here it isn't. The action is easy to follow despite its complexity.
The only thing I would complain about is the fact that there were so! many! exclamation! marks! They were definitely overused in the dialogue and in Lou's narration, it got distracting quite early on in the book. Also, this novel is set in England, so the terms and dialogues are written with English terms that a North American like me doesn't necessarily use on a day-to-day basis. It took some time to get used to, but in the end it was fun and refreshing to read a book that wasn't set in a typical American setting and narrative.
The characters were pretty great too. Lou seemed like kind of a ditz at times though (for example, every time someone asked her a question, she always thought "What? They know my secret? How?" Every. Single. Time. It got slightly annoying towards the end but it's a fact that's easy to look over). Also she flip-flopped between opinions of "Christian's innocent! No he's guilty!" way too quickly in my opinion. She automatically believed whoever gave her an inch of convincing evidence. I wanted to yell at her a few times in the book.
I loved the parallels that Katie Dale made between Christian and Lou's lives, their lies and double-identities. I also very much enjoyed the way Katie Dale wrote Christian. You wanted to believe he was the good guy, just like Lou did, but because of the way he was written, there was still a seedling of doubt. This I loved because it made the ending hard to predict (and I really, really didn't predict it).
Kenny and Vix were also interesting characters. I do kind of wish that there would have been more of a resolution to Kenny's story. He was there and then he wasn't and we don't really get to see him get a satisfying ending, though maybe he didn't really deserve one...
Little White Lies is an interesting novel about the impact that lies can have in our lives and how people aren't always who we initially perceive them to be. It's amazingly written with sharp twists and turns that leave you waiting to see what happens next but doesn't leave you confused. I would definitely recommend this to lovers of mystery/whodunnit novels. And even if you don't, I still recommend you check it out because you might just fall in love with it too.
Was this book ever a wild ride! Mystery isn't a big like for me, but I thought I'd take a chance with this one because the e-reader preview intrigued me so much. And let me tell you how glad I was to do it. Little White Lies is so full of twists and turns that I was constantly on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what was going to happen next.
I can't write much of a detailed review about this lest I give anything away, but I'll talk you through the basics. Lou meets Christian when she's in university and she's determined to be with him. But this story isn't only about that. Strange things start happening around Christian. Someone frames him for a break-in at his job, he doesn't want to go out with Lou in the evening and it seems that someone is out to get him. This leads us to the first twist.
Katie Dale's writing in Little White Lies is extraordinary. It's subtle. There's never any info-dumping, even if this story in a lesser writer's hands could've been a disaster in that field. The reader's find things out at the same time as the character does, or only when we need to to understand the story. Nothing is revealed too soon or too late and nothing gets confusing, even after the story takes about twenty twists and turns into territory you didn't think it would. Sometimes with stories like this, it's hard to keep track of everything that's going on but here it isn't. The action is easy to follow despite its complexity.
The only thing I would complain about is the fact that there were so! many! exclamation! marks! They were definitely overused in the dialogue and in Lou's narration, it got distracting quite early on in the book. Also, this novel is set in England, so the terms and dialogues are written with English terms that a North American like me doesn't necessarily use on a day-to-day basis. It took some time to get used to, but in the end it was fun and refreshing to read a book that wasn't set in a typical American setting and narrative.
The characters were pretty great too. Lou seemed like kind of a ditz at times though (for example, every time someone asked her a question, she always thought "What? They know my secret? How?" Every. Single. Time. It got slightly annoying towards the end but it's a fact that's easy to look over). Also she flip-flopped between opinions of "Christian's innocent! No he's guilty!" way too quickly in my opinion. She automatically believed whoever gave her an inch of convincing evidence. I wanted to yell at her a few times in the book.
I loved the parallels that Katie Dale made between Christian and Lou's lives, their lies and double-identities. I also very much enjoyed the way Katie Dale wrote Christian. You wanted to believe he was the good guy, just like Lou did, but because of the way he was written, there was still a seedling of doubt. This I loved because it made the ending hard to predict (and I really, really didn't predict it).
Kenny and Vix were also interesting characters. I do kind of wish that there would have been more of a resolution to Kenny's story. He was there and then he wasn't and we don't really get to see him get a satisfying ending, though maybe he didn't really deserve one...
Little White Lies is an interesting novel about the impact that lies can have in our lives and how people aren't always who we initially perceive them to be. It's amazingly written with sharp twists and turns that leave you waiting to see what happens next but doesn't leave you confused. I would definitely recommend this to lovers of mystery/whodunnit novels. And even if you don't, I still recommend you check it out because you might just fall in love with it too.
juhina's review
2.0
I am very disappointed in Little White Lies. Have you seen the ratings on goodreads? I am definitely in the minority when it comes to how I rate and feel about Little White Lies. Bottom line, I disliked it and thought half of what went on in the book to be completely ridiculous. It is a mystery contemporary but all I got was full on romance until the last 100 pages or so. Lou starts university, which is only mentioned very briefly at the beginning. Don't you think a university student would spend the majority of their time at university? that wasn't the case for Lou. Also, she has a 'best friend' who she literally met two weeks ago. Wow, they sure jump to best friend status fast. Then we've got the Christian infatuation (which is justified later one). However, I just couldn't get into his character especially since I knew something was up with him (and predicted 100% correctly). It was too much of a soap opera for me. When finally, I actually gasp at a revelation, immediately taints that fantastic twist by the most cliche plot line ever. I know I am being vague but I can't spoil anything. Which is why 90% of my frustration can only be told in coded sentences.
As for the characters, the only person I actually liked was Kenny. He was typical rich kid but I found him really endearing and wanted more scenes with him.. plus he's a hacker, how cool is that? unfortunately I can't say the same about the other flat characters, including Lou. A last thing I disliked is the use of heavy hinting. It was done in such a n obvious way that I would have preferred the revelation to happen early on. I was rolling my eyes thinking if the author thinks the readers are that clueless to not guess everything from the beginning. I just really wasn't impressed. I only recommend it to fans of light mysteries and heavy romance readers (if you can get over the cliches).
As for the characters, the only person I actually liked was Kenny. He was typical rich kid but I found him really endearing and wanted more scenes with him.. plus he's a hacker, how cool is that? unfortunately I can't say the same about the other flat characters, including Lou. A last thing I disliked is the use of heavy hinting. It was done in such a n obvious way that I would have preferred the revelation to happen early on. I was rolling my eyes thinking if the author thinks the readers are that clueless to not guess everything from the beginning. I just really wasn't impressed. I only recommend it to fans of light mysteries and heavy romance readers (if you can get over the cliches).