A review by aitchfrost
Three Little Lies by Danielle Stewart

slow-paced

3.0

A book filled with secrets and backstories and definitely more than three lies. A girl is matched with an American family to come and stay for six weeks and experience a fantastic school. Seems like a perfect match as the girl has allergies and so does the son in the host family and the mum has food safe down to a tee. Then things start not to add up and it all gets a bit mysterious, including doubts starting to mount up about the dad who seemingly works away a lot. There is a lot going on and we’re all a bit unsure about who we’re trusting. I think my main issue with this book is that I really didn’t warm to the main female character, in fact none of the characters were particularly likeable so my investment in what happened to them was too low. The exchange student wasn’t very plausibly English either, her turns of phrase were halfheartedly still very American and the rough mentions of her small town England lack of opportunities riled me somewhat. There were technically twists and turns in the story but it was all a bit too implausible and far fetched. The theme which sort of ran through with the anonymous notes wasn’t quite right or integral enough and thought through either. All in all a fairly ok read but a bit daft, halfhearted and implausible so despite the depth of emotions and happy ending I couldn’t really force myself to like this enough to recommend it with any gusto.