Reviews - The Lies That Bind

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1.02k reviews for:

AHHHHHH I got approved for an ARC on Netgalley!!!! *squeals*

12 May 2020
** I received a free ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. **

The first 80% of this book was great... the beginning of the book sucked me in and made me want to sit and keep reading until I was done with it. The scenes where Giffin describes the aftermath of 9/11 gave me chilling goosebumps. Everything with the book was going great -- I enjoyed the characters and the storyline. BUT (and this is a big BUT) the last 20% kind of ruined this book for me. I didn't like the ending AT ALL. However, since I got my ARC back in February (publication date is set for June 2), I'm kind of hoping that some of the things I majorly disliked somehow ended up getting changed, even if it would mean a complete re-write of the ending. Not likely....but who knows. Initially, I'd have given this book 4.5-5 stars, but if I had to just rate the ending, it would probably be 2 stars.

I'm a huge fan of Emily Giffin's books, and I absolutely LOVED her previous book, All We Ever Wanted. I'm still looking forward to what she has to offer in her future books, but this one was just so so disappointing.

readingari's review against another edition

3.0

Oh I’m so torn by this book. It was interesting, it was sometimes predictable and sometimes ridiculously unbelievable. But I couldn’t put it down. But I didn’t love it. I don’t know... it seemed like maybe it wanted to be too many things at once.

beemariedee's review against another edition

1.0

It's rare that I can't finish a book, but about 2/3 through, I just couldn't force myself to keep reading. I'll preface this by saying that I've read other novels by the same author, but this one didn't hit. The characters are all shallow, the plot is unbelievable, and the story line jumps around too much.

I looked for a synopsis online so I could "cliff notes" the ending, but I never found one.

jillyfay's review against another edition

2.0

While I wanted to love this book I just can’t. The plot was so utterly predictable!! At first I thought something big would happen around 9/11 and then we would flash forward to current times and then it would get juicy. When they were in London and I realized something shady was up, and then realized he was due back in the US September 10 I predicted what was going to happen next - all except for her “friendship” with Amy. The main character, Cecily (whose name I’d already forgotten), developed a bit and grew into herself - but that all really happened from 2001-2006....in the years that were skipped. We were told about it later! This story would have been much much better had she actually written about THAT time! Sure. Fine. Include all the stuff between her and Grant and Matthew and why Grant did what he did, blah blah, blah...but show Cecily grow and develop as a character. Show how she did all she did for herself. Nope. Missed that part.