This Is Why We Lie by Gabriella Lepore #bookreview #yA #thriller
Title: This Is Why We Lie
Author: Gabriella Lepore
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Publication Date: September 21, 2021
Page Count: 320
My rating: 3 1/2 stars
About the book:
Everyone in Gardiners Bay has a secret.
When Jenna Dallas and Adam Cole find Colleen O’Dell’s body floating off the shore of their coastal town, the community of Gardiners Bay is shaken. But even more shocking is the fact that her drowning was no accident.
Once Jenna’s best friend becomes a key suspect, Jenna starts to look for answers on her own. As she uncovers scandals inside Preston Prep School leading back to Rookwood reform school, she knows she needs Adam on her side.
As a student at Rookwood, Adam is used to getting judgmental looks, but now his friends are being investigated by the police. Adam will do whatever he can to keep them safe, even if that means trusting Jenna.
As lies unravel, the truth starts to blur. Only one thing is certain: somebody must take the fall.
This Is Why We Lie by Gabriella Lepore is a young adult thriller. The story in this one is told with dual narration by Jenna Dallas and Adam Cole who discover the body. It is also one that takes place in a current timeline with also flashing back to the before timeline. This is also a book that has things like news articles, police interviews etc mixed into the story.
Jenna loves taking in the scenery in Gardiners Bay at dawn just before the morning light comes and the day starts. Out taking photos once again Jenna believes she is all alone but she then hears a call for help. Rushing over Jenna comes across Adam pulling a body from the water and when she gets closer to help she sees it’s someone she knows, Colleen O’Dell, who also attends Preston Prep School with Jenna and Jenna fears Colleen is beyond help.
Soon Jenna finds herself being interviewed by police as it seems Colleen being in the water was no ordinary drowning but possibly murder. When Jenna’s best friend becomes a suspect in the death Jenna knows she needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Colleen. Jenna suspects that the boys at Rookwood, a reform school, may know more than they are telling since Colleen regularly attended parties there.
Boy those city planners in Gardiners Bay really needed to rethink the decision to have a girls elite prep school so close to the boy’s reform school but of course then we would not have this YA thriller. This Is Why We Lie moved a little slowly for me a couple of reasons. First, I had a bit of trouble connecting to the characters with this one and it took a while to get to know them. Then I also felt the flashing back could have been done in a little better fashion to make it flow better and make it clearer when/where parts are taking place so in the end I’d rate this young adult thriller at three and a half stars.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
Find this book online:
Goodreads / Amazon*
About the author:
Carries Book Reviews 
Nice Review Carrie.
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Thanks Carla! 🙂
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Great review, Carrie! It does kind of remind me of ‘Broken Things’ by Lauren Oliver but.. definitely an ‘I’ll get to it eventually’ Tbr for me!
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Thanks Sheri! I haven’t read that one but I keep thinking I’m picking up a lot of books that sound similar to others these days. Guess that happens when you try to read them all!🤣
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You’re not kidding! That’s why it’s so great when you find something completely original!
And I don’t know about reading them all.. I’m still picky as all get out about romances!
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Romance is probably my least picky genre, well sort of, I do try not to pick up books that sound like I won’t enjoy them for one reason or another so it’s possible I just get lucky and avoid the ones I’d pick apart and am more adventurous in other genres.
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I get bored. I like romance in my books.. but not so much the books that are just about romance. I like funny ones, enemies to lovers, and reverse harems though. 😆
Any you would recommend?
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Do you like authors like Mary Kay Andrews that have a bit of mystery in them? Usually with romance I get more annoyed if it’s full of angst, like how am I supposed to believe it’s a happy ending when they can’t get going without a ton of issues?
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I actually had to look her up first, she’s not an author I’m familiar with but, I did add a few of her books to check out!
When it comes to romance? I’m more of an enemies to lovers kind of girl. I guess I can’t do just straight romance, there should be something more happening. Murder, mystery, magic. If they get a happy ending.. they had to work for it. 😆
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I get that, I don’t mind once in a while to get a romance only type of book but I definitely couldn’t only read that all the time either.
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Agreed! There have been a few this year that I’ve been interested in checking out. I need to get my hands on ‘The Invisible Husband of Frick Island’.. that one has my curiosity piqued.
Have any caught your eye?
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Haha some days it feels like way too many catch my eye as I usually have a couple hundred in line to be read. Somehow though I musta missed The Invisible Husband of Frick Island but that one does look good, seems it has a bit of mystery too.🙂
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Oh, I know that feeling, it’s almost every night you get another half a dozen new ones for the tbr and that’s not even toughing the ones that haven’t been released yet!
It does sound interesting, right? (I love mysteries!) Eventually I’ll even get to read it!
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Haha true, at least I have my book lists organized now to keep up with all that I add.
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Ah, man, I wish mine were.. my lists are all a giant mess. My notes. Everything is currently in disarray. Hopefully I can find a good program or something to organize everything in.
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Good luck Sheri, I know I was becoming completely scattered before I started a Google spreadsheet.
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Thank you! It’s all thanks to these crazy amazing people who keep helping me out that I haven’t crashed and burned. 😉
I’ll have to try that out.. I’ve been having some difficulty find a program that works the way I want. See? Crazy amazing. 💕
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What I did was just open a spreadsheet and label my columns, such as title, pub date, publisher etc. Made a second tab for to be reviewed books adding in genre and notes tabs. I keep mine in order of publication dates but you could use whatever works for you. When you need to take one off the to be read and move it to the reviews you can just delete that row and insert a row where you want it in the other list. Of course if I want to track anything else I can just use another column and add/delete those too so I find it great for my purpose.
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I’m starting to feel like a notebook and a good old fashioned number 2 pencil might do wonders here.. and a shit-ton of post its. Highlighters. Maybe I’ll just move into Office Depot. 🤔😋
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I’m so OCD with keeping things neat the old fashioned pen and paper never works for me for lists anymore because I get annoyed with marking things off and still having them on my list.🤣
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Yea, I get that, I knew it wasn’t likely to work while I wrote it.. not with how much information ends up being involved. It would take too long to create a physical organization system.. too bad, though.
I’ll still be checking out Google spreadsheets though, thanks!
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If you need any help or suggestions I’d be happy to answer any question with them. I really find them super easy now although I’m certainly not a master at it.
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*e-hugs* You’re so kind! 😭
Thank you, that means a lot, and I might have to take you up on the offer some time. Mostly I just need to sit down and take the time to do it.. They do say that experience is the best teacher!
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True, I found out how handy the spreadsheets were with Goodreads challenges. Then I noticed it wasn’t hard to do the basics and broke down and made my own instead of endless scrolling through my want to read shelf on there and find I’d left some off of it.🤣
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As much as I love goodreads, they really need to work on a better organization system, too. (she says hypocritically..) It’s so hard to find anything on there once it’s disappeared into a list.
And is it just me or do the books somehow multiply and move around on their own? 😳🤭
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I do think mine have been mutated from bunnies, they certainly multiply like bunnies!
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Right! But only if you mean Bunnicula.. these ain’t your average bunnies. 😂
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True! I also feel I have a few lemmings running around adding new books to my shelf too.
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I’m half convinced they collect themselves.. 🤭
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