A review by doodlebeanz
Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I have been dying to get my hands on this book since it released in 2024, and my library didn't have any copies and I had no luck at giveaways and never had the heart to spend $30 at barnes and noble on it. I was just waiting for the day that it popped up as available on my Libby app. But then I went to a target in bumfuck no where Upstate New York and I found it, sitting on a shelf with a lovely 30% off sticker on it... I ended up paying $13, which is a financial pill much easier for me to swallow and I immediately started reading it that same night.

From the very first page, I was completely hooked. Lucy Chase is my spirit animal, she is one of my new fave FMCs. She did not give a shit about anyone's perception or opinion of her, and she was just all around incredible. Her dark humor bewitched me heart and soul. Her coping mechanisms to potentially murdering her best friend were humor and escapism, and if that doesn't feel like a personal call out, then Idk what does. All the characters were great; they were all so real feeling. The banter between characters reminded me a lot of the banter and humor of Schitt's Creek. Like there were some scenes that I envisioned the characters of Schitt's Creek (Lucy being Stevie, iykyk!) and it made it 10x funnier. The thing I loved most about this book was the banter and the way the characters were related and interconnected. It all flowed easily and naturally. There were a few moments where I rolled my eyes, or found something not entirely realistic, but they were outnumbered by the amount of times I giggled or nodded along because something just made sense.

The writing style is phenomenal and so easy to read and follow. I loved the Podcast element, and the Podcast format. It reminded me a lot of None of This is True by Lisa Jewell. Sometimes it was hard to decipher who was saying what during the Podcast chapters, but that was due to formatting, not with the story itself. I do feel sometimes there were pieces of information that were talked about in the podcasts that never got their own scene in the story, and sometimes thing were a little hard to follow, but that was not the norm. Amy Tintera was SO good at keeping the story flowing, to follow up loose ends and tie them up nicely and neatly so the reader understood. Sometimes in thrillers/mysteries, especially ones with this many characters, sub-plots get forgotten and plot holes never get filled in, but Tintera did a phenomenal job at making sure this never happened. The only time I feel that the story was rushed or that something didn't fit, was the ending and the inevitably of
Lucy's memories coming back all at once and unearthing who the murderer actually was. The fact that it was Emmett didn't sit right with me. I loved how it was written out, but it all just made no sense. I guess it was for a surprise and shock factor, like O M G IT WAS THE NICE GUY ALL ALONG and believe me, I get that, but it just didn't... fit. It seemed lazy to me. I almost convinced myself that it was Lucy's grandmother at one point, or even Ben (imagine that?!), or Nina, or even one of Lucy's parents... but Emmett never crossed my mind and I think that makes it seem so odd. He was an obsessive - and delusional - monster who paraded being sweet and normal, which is every woman's nightmare, but the intensity of going from him and Lucy kissing twice to then feeling the urge to kill her?? Just seems... far fetched.
This is always the issue with thriller books, the lead up doesn't always pay off in the end. I don't feel shortchanged, and I don't feel like the story was bad for having an ending that I didn't necessarily agree with which is new for me. But still... it just didn't sit right, idk.

Also, in the last chapter when Lucy tells Beverly that there is still stuff that no one knows about... I am not sure what she's talking about. There were so many moments where Lucy seemed to be talking about moments and secrets that she shared with Savvy that the readers aren't aware of and I'm not sure if that's intentional or if that's just me not picking up on nuances. Was she talking about the fact that Savvy killed someone? Did that ever really happen? Why was that not discussed more? I don't know, for how much of the story surrounded Savvy, she was barely a character besides if she was in hallucinatory form. Was she nice or not? Lol, I still can't quite get a read on that. The whole Savvy and Lucy storyline felt lacking, like I was missing some key piece of the story... and I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.


Quoted from a GoodRead reviewer (@thebookscript), "My least favorite tropes in thrillers are ones where all the drama centers around sex. Unfortunately this falls prey to sex and infidelity as the backbone of the story. No one really has any moral backbone, and anything goes making for a gratuitous amount of unnecessary sex and random make-outs?" I do agree with this description. Lucy made out with 3 different people in the current timeline of this story... which no shame in her game, get it, but it is annoying sometimes when authors use sex as shock value in some way. I don't come from a smalltown, but I do know that they consist of a lot of sexual trysts and infidelity and people sleeping with the same people, which I am sure is what Tintera was going for here, but it did take away from the story... like 5% of the time. I wish instead of reading about how
Ben and Lucy fucked so many times, and how Ben clearly got off on Lucy being a murderer
, we got more insight into Savvy and Lucy's friendship.

This story did not have the best twist, and this book does fall victim to some of the classic thriller tropes and stereotypes, but I loved every second of it. I loved the writing, I loved the characters, I loved the setting and I loved the podcast element. I would recommend this to anyone. I consider it a low stakes thriller, barely even a thriller, really. If you just take it for what it is and enjoy yourself, you will enjoy this book!
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