REVIEW: Lies

Lies
Author: T.M. Logan

Imagine that you find out one day.....seemingly out of the blue.....that your entire life is based on lies. All of it. What you thought you could trust, suddenly you can't believe in. An altercation with a family friend leaves a man on the sidewalk injured. Joe leaves the scene to get medical help for his son who is having an asthma attack. When he returns, the man is gone.....but then the text messages start. Joe's life rapidly disintegrates. Lies, lies, lies....all lies.

I found this book a bit hard to read. The plot is disturbing. I didn't feel sorry for Joe. What I felt was more akin to pity, I think. He's just.....stupid. Completely naive. What person today reaches their mid-30s and can't discern anything about human behavior? He is completely blindsided by everything. I guess maybe when you are completely content, you ignore warning signs? The entire time I was reading I kept wanting to grab Joe and shake him, yelling "Stop being so bloody stupid!''  All of the characters are hiding something....lying, manipulating, cheating. Just an unlikable crew. It was hard to sit back and watch Joe's life totally come to pieces all because of one spur-of-the-moment innocent choice to please his young son....BOOM.....   One decision.....and he can never go back to content.

Powerful story. But I felt emotionally exhausted as I finished reading. All the horrible lies. All the twists. The absolute trashing of a man's entire life......OMG. That sort of train wreck is hard to watch. I did stick through the entire book because I just HAD to know the entire truth and what was going to ultimately happen. But I didn't get entirely sucked into the story because I just felt Joe was completely naive....and the rest of the cast were horrendous human beings. But, if a book gives me strong feelings....even negative ones....then it's well written and got its point across. Do we ever really totally know the people around us? Everyone has secrets. Everyone tells lies. How much can any person really trust? And what happens when things start to fall apart? For Joe, they fall apart in a disastrous way.

Well-written, but disturbing. Several surprising twists. I had to watch a few sitcom episodes after I finished this. Needed a fast palate cleanser to clear my head.

I will definitely be reading more by this author! I know now to keep a funny movie queued in wait for me to finish. His other book, 29 Seconds, sounds just as disturbing. The tag line says "How much could you lose in 29 seconds?''   I might just need two funny movies after that one!

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**