Enjoyable but frustrating

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Lying Out Loud is not a prequel or a sequel, it is a self-contained story, which should not need to be read in a particular order with Keplinger's other titles... However there are a number of throw-away scenes in this book which refer to characters and relationships from her earlier titles. The scenes contribute nothing at all to the story, but rather slow the pace as well as giving away summaries of the entire plots of her other novels.It felt thoughtless and self-congratulatory of the author to include these, and I wish an editor had pulled them out of the finished book.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

I lost patience with Sonny quite rapidly.At first her constant lying is mildly entertaining and a symptom of her home life / family situation. But her treatment of her best friend, the ingratitude she shows towards her, as well as the way she places her in an intolerable situation and then goes back on a promise she made to her for purely self-interested reasons, all made me very angry.Towards the end of the book, when it was completely obvious that her lies would be found out, it felt unrealistic that any person could be stupid or selfish enough to act the way Sonny does, at which point I hoped both the love interest and her best friend would simply wash their hands of her forever.

Which scene did you most enjoy?

I enjoyed the scene where Amy's parents find out the real reason Sonny has been staying at their house. It was emotional and helped to regain some of sympathy and compassion for Sonny that was desperately needed by this point when I was starting to hate her.

Was Lying Out Loud worth the listening time?

Yes, overall I did enjoy it, but there were moments I wanted to fast-forward to avoid spoilers of other novels - and because those scenes contributed nothing to the story. It would have benefitted from tighter editing, as the whole 'when will the truth come out' part began to drag.

Any additional comments?

The narrator was great, I thought she got the voices of Sonny and Amy just right.

1 person found this helpful

Good book apart from the ending

I thought this was a good read but I was disappointed with the ending, the whole book with everything to end like that was underwhelming to say the least! I won't go into why I feel this way as I don't want to spoil it for others but more could of been done! I understand why it's called a companion as it follows Wesley's Sister, and I love how the characters from her other books make an appearance but just be warned that if your planning to read her other books, read them in order as it will spoil them for you!