A review by octobertune
Lies by Michael Grant

3.5

After reading Hunger, and not liking it very much, I was very reluctant to read the rest of the series. Still, when I was in Amsterdam and I saw Lies on the discount shelf at American Book Center, I decided to take it with me just because.

I have to admit, I wasn't really looking forward to reading Lies, mainly because Hunger had disappointed me a bit. But I can't stand it when I don't finish a series, so eventually I just got myself a copy of Lies because I really wanted to know how the story goes on. I got through Lies a lot quicker than Hunger and I liked it a lot more as well. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Lies was a bit thinner than the previous two books (Gone had 558 pages, Hunger had 590 pages and Lies only 446).

The writing was very good, as usual, I just enjoy Michael Grant's writing a lot, but personally I would have loved a bit less POV's in the series. Especially since every book has new characters that weren't there in the previous books. In Lies, we're introduced to five new characters who live on one of the islands trapped in the FAYZ. I liked reading about them, but I was just a tiny bit annoyed because there were another five characters I needed to remember in the upcoming books.

Of course, there are also still the original characters; Sam, Astrid, Little Pete, Quinn, Caine, Diana, etc. And I liked reading about them (okay I hated reading about Caine, but still). They all have issues, like the fights Sam and Astrid have, the fact that Caine and Diana and the other Coates kids are nearly starving to death; and I liked them for that. They weren't perfect, Astrid wasn't the perfect 'genius' that she was supposed to be, Sam wasn't the perfect hero that everyone thought he was, but that didn't matter. I liked them. And honestly, it would pain me to see any one of them leaving (yes, even Caine, though he's just a pain in the arse).

Lies is also the first book in the series, where we hear about people on the outside of the FAYZ, which made me really happy. I do kind of hope we'll be hearing more from them, but for some reason I think that's not going to happen, oh well, a girl can hope!

I was also very annoyed by the Human Crew in this book. It reminded me a lot of those people inside the bus in the Midnight episode of Doctor Who. It shows you how horrible humans can be during a situation like this, and I think Grant did a VERY good job at it with the Human Crew. Every time I read about them wanting to kill the 'freaks' I cringed and wrote down I wanted Zil to be punished.

In the end, I am really happy with Lies because it means I will probably be less reluctant to finish the rest of the series. I definitely recommend this series to anyone who wants to read a nice dystopia story that isn't a trilogy!