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A review by maggiemaggio
Lies I Told by Michelle Zink
3.0
Lies I Told is great plane or beach read. Now that's not an insult, not everything can told your attention when you want to be distracted from turbulence and the moron next to you or make you want to have your nose in a book rather than staring out at the beautiful sparkling water. Lies I Told strikes a balance between a fun, suspenseful page turner and a more serious side.
Grace was adopted after several tough foster homes by two parents she really loves who also happen to be thieves. Her parents move Grace and her adopted brother, Preston, around the country using the kids to befriend kids of the rich and privileged to help their parents steal from them. When the story starts Grace's family has just moved to southern California and they've set up camp in an incredibly affluent area to try to pull off their biggest con yet, stealing millions in solid gold bars from a local family. Grace is supposed to cozy up to the family's only child, Logan. Since she's done this before she feels comfortable blending in and playing her part, but when she gets to know Logan, and some of the other kids at school, she starts to actually care about them and, for the first time, starts to think about the consequences of her family's actions.
The strongest part of this story was Grace. She could have just been a wet rag who goes along with what her parents want, but she was a really dynamic character who also grew over the course of the story. Even though the story never goes into detail about, it she did go through some tough times before she was adopted. Those tough times left her really afraid of being abandoned and, even though she sometimes questions if what her parents make her do is right, in the end she's really thankful they adopted her and take care of her (and to their credit they do seem to care about her). On the other hand, Preston is over being a pawn for their parents and tries to convince Grace to abandon their life and run away with him. Throughout the story Grace is pulled around not only by her own conscious, but also by Preston.
Grace also builds really interesting relationships with her peers. Part of her role involves being able to adapt to any situation and befriend people around her without standing out too much. As they settle down in California Grace finds herself really make friends beyond what her role in the con calls for and it's really clear how much she cares about people. It takes real skill to build such a complicated character who's ruthless, scared, caring, and kind all at once, but Michelle Zink managed to do it with Grace.
The rest of the story and characters is where the book maybe doesn't fall a little short, but is lacking. The elaborate heists that Grace's family manages to pull off just seem like they would have, at some point, had the family come under some kind of heat, but as far as we know Grace's family pulls off the cons, sticks around to not arouse suspicion, and, after an acceptable wait, moves on to their next scheme. It seems like eventually somewhere someone would have realized what was happening. Zink talks about how Grace doesn't know how her father finds the cons, but there's also never any details about who arranges the houses and school paperwork and drivers licenses. With some additional backstory it would have been a lot easier to buy into what was going on.
Also, besides Grace and Preston, the other characters kind of just blend into the background. There's the girl Grace befriends and obviously cares about, there's Logan (the mark), and Logan's ex-girlfriend who doesn't trust Grace, but besides that everyone else melts together. Zink tried to give Logan's dad, the incredibly rich man hoarding gold bars for the apocalypse his own backstory, but it was confusing and never really materialized in the actual glimpses of Logan's dad.
And a note in case, like me, you didn't realize like me, the story in Lies I Told doesn't wrap up here there's a sequel, Promises I Made, coming out later this year. Which is fine, but I wish I had known that going in.
Bottom Line: Lies I Told features a strong, dynamic, fascinating main character, an interesting family, and a suspenseful story. The book really shines when it's dealing with Grace, the main character, but the rest of it is entertaining as well, even if there are some aspects where you need to suspend disbelief and the secondary characters are a little lacking.
I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss (thank you!). All opinions are my own.
This review first appeared on my blog.
Grace was adopted after several tough foster homes by two parents she really loves who also happen to be thieves. Her parents move Grace and her adopted brother, Preston, around the country using the kids to befriend kids of the rich and privileged to help their parents steal from them. When the story starts Grace's family has just moved to southern California and they've set up camp in an incredibly affluent area to try to pull off their biggest con yet, stealing millions in solid gold bars from a local family. Grace is supposed to cozy up to the family's only child, Logan. Since she's done this before she feels comfortable blending in and playing her part, but when she gets to know Logan, and some of the other kids at school, she starts to actually care about them and, for the first time, starts to think about the consequences of her family's actions.
The strongest part of this story was Grace. She could have just been a wet rag who goes along with what her parents want, but she was a really dynamic character who also grew over the course of the story. Even though the story never goes into detail about, it she did go through some tough times before she was adopted. Those tough times left her really afraid of being abandoned and, even though she sometimes questions if what her parents make her do is right, in the end she's really thankful they adopted her and take care of her (and to their credit they do seem to care about her). On the other hand, Preston is over being a pawn for their parents and tries to convince Grace to abandon their life and run away with him. Throughout the story Grace is pulled around not only by her own conscious, but also by Preston.
Grace also builds really interesting relationships with her peers. Part of her role involves being able to adapt to any situation and befriend people around her without standing out too much. As they settle down in California Grace finds herself really make friends beyond what her role in the con calls for and it's really clear how much she cares about people. It takes real skill to build such a complicated character who's ruthless, scared, caring, and kind all at once, but Michelle Zink managed to do it with Grace.
The rest of the story and characters is where the book maybe doesn't fall a little short, but is lacking. The elaborate heists that Grace's family manages to pull off just seem like they would have, at some point, had the family come under some kind of heat, but as far as we know Grace's family pulls off the cons, sticks around to not arouse suspicion, and, after an acceptable wait, moves on to their next scheme. It seems like eventually somewhere someone would have realized what was happening. Zink talks about how Grace doesn't know how her father finds the cons, but there's also never any details about who arranges the houses and school paperwork and drivers licenses. With some additional backstory it would have been a lot easier to buy into what was going on.
Also, besides Grace and Preston, the other characters kind of just blend into the background. There's the girl Grace befriends and obviously cares about, there's Logan (the mark), and Logan's ex-girlfriend who doesn't trust Grace, but besides that everyone else melts together. Zink tried to give Logan's dad, the incredibly rich man hoarding gold bars for the apocalypse his own backstory, but it was confusing and never really materialized in the actual glimpses of Logan's dad.
And a note in case, like me, you didn't realize like me, the story in Lies I Told doesn't wrap up here there's a sequel, Promises I Made, coming out later this year. Which is fine, but I wish I had known that going in.
Bottom Line: Lies I Told features a strong, dynamic, fascinating main character, an interesting family, and a suspenseful story. The book really shines when it's dealing with Grace, the main character, but the rest of it is entertaining as well, even if there are some aspects where you need to suspend disbelief and the secondary characters are a little lacking.
I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss (thank you!). All opinions are my own.
This review first appeared on my blog.