Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

Normally, I am not a big YA Mystery type of reader, however this book may change that. “Dare You To Lie” by Amber Lynn Natusch is a new YA Thriller/Mystery novel that I requested and received from Raincoast Canada over two months ago. However, I just read this book last week and LOVED IT. By far one of the best YA thrillers I have EVER read. I featured “Dare You To Lie” in my October TBR, which you can read here!

Synopsis (Goodreads.com):

When her FBI agent father is framed for murder, Kylene is forced to move in with her grandfather, back to the small town that turned its back on her, and the boy who betrayed her. All Ky cares about is clearing her father’s name, but someone won’t let her forget the photo scandal that drove her away two years ago. As the threats gain momentum, Ky finds an unlikely ally in the rookie FBI agent sent to keep an eye on her. Determined to expose the town’s hidden skeletons, Ky unwittingly thrusts herself into a much bigger plot. They thought she’d forgive and forget. They’re about to learn they messed with the wrong girl.

This book was INCREDIBLE.

I am not normally a huge fan of YA Thrillers/Mystery books, so requesting this one was definitely “out of my comfort zone”. However, reading this was a very rewarding experience, especially since I enjoyed it so much.

Originally, when I started the book, I was not in the mood for a high school story. Most of the ones I had read before had been been very easy to predict and included a very nauseating love story. But even after just 50 pages, I was hooked! The high school setting was great and very beneficial for the story. While we didn’t read many chapters about the school and Kylene’s student life, the role of the kids in the school was important in the story, therefore setting it at a school made a lot of sense.

All of the characters in this story were fascinated to read about, and contributed to my overall enjoyment of the story. I found that I formed a connection to the characters very early on into the story, which usually means that I will enjoy reading the book throughout the whole plot/story line. Kylene was a great protagonist and I loved reading from her perspective throughout the novel. The emotions she felt were expressed in great detail in the book, which made it much easier to read and understand how she was feeling throughout different events in the story. One of my favourite characters in the book was Kylene’s grandfather. While Kylene’s connection with her parents may not have been so strong, her bond with her grandfather was very special and you could tell how deeply they cared for each other. The absence of her parents (specifically her Mom) seemed hard to deal with for Kylene, but her Grandfather filled that void. I also loved both Garrett and Tabby, Kylene’s two best friends. They both added so much to the story and were a great support system for Kylene when she needed to talk out what she was feeling.

Even though Kylene’s parents were brought up slightly during the first half of the novel, I would have loved to have read more about both of them. The mothers’ story was easy to understand because it pretty much resulted in Kylene’s move back to her original home. However, I found Kylene’s fathers backstory quite confusing. I would have liked to read more about her Dad in the passed, and I would have liked to read more about the father in the present and seen him more involved in Kylene’s story.

Since this was a fact-paced YA thriller, Amber Lynn Natusch’s writing style may not be for everyone. It was an extremely fast read for me, which was mostly because of the pace of the plot line. I personally enjoy reading books where you really have to pay attention to all of the events going on in every chapter, or else you would not understand what is going on. Those types of books make for thrilling reads and really impressive story lines, like what is seen in “Dare You To Lie”.

This book also featured a lot of impressive plot twists, that I did not see coming AT ALL. The mystery aspect greatly contributed to the plot twists and turns throughout the novel. I am normally pretty good at predicting events in a novel, but this one had some very surprising ones that I did not see coming.

One of the only things I didn’t like about this novel was the ending. At first, I didn’t realize that this book was the first of a series, so the ending had me quite confused. There wasn’t any real closure in this novel, it only answered one main mystery, but left the much bigger one unsolved. I assume all of it will be solved in the books to come, but I wish we had a bigger hint, and weren’t left with such a cliff hanger.

Overall, this book was fantastic and I gave it 4.5/5 stars on Goodreads. To read my thoughts on this book while reading it, click here!

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Thanks for reading my book review for “Dare You To Lie” by Amber Lynn Natusch! I haven’t read a YA thriller like this in a long time, so if anybody has any YA thriller/mystery recommendations, let me know in the comments!

Thanks to Raincoast Canada for sending along an ARC of this book, I’m so thankful for this opportunity!