Best Friends Tell the Best Lies

by Carol Dines

Fourteen-year-old Leah's loyalty and devotion to her emotionally troubled friend, Tamara, brings into focus some of her conflicting feelings about her mother's imminent remarriage and her own growing attachment to a young Mexican American, the nephew of her mother's boyfriend.Fourteen-year-old Leah's loyalty to her emotionally troubled friend, Tamara, brings into focus her conflicting feelings about her mother's imminent remarriage and her own growing attachment to a young Mexican American

Genres: Young Adult

213 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Carol Dines’s recent adult fiction, a collection of stories, This Distance We Call Love, won the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, 2022, and was a finalist in the National Indies Excellence Award for short fiction. In addition, her new young adult novel, The Take-Over Friend, finalist for the Achevan Prize, will be forthcoming from Fitzroy Books October, 2022. Her recent stories have been published in Ploughshares, Salamander, Narrative, Colorado Review, and Nimrod International. She has also published two novels for young adults, Best Friends Tell the Best Lies (Delacorte), The Queen’s Soprano (Harcourt) and a collection of short stories for young adults, Talk to Me (Delacorte.) In addition, she has published poems and stories in numerous journals and anthologies, including Somebody’s Speaking My Language (Women’s Voices Press), Voices of the Land (Milkweed), and Love and Lust: An Anthology, (Taylor and O’Neill’s Open To Interpretation, 2014). She is a recipient of the Judy Blume award as well as a recipient of Minnesota and Wisconsin State Artist Fellowships. Dines received a BA from Stanford University and an MA in English from Colorado State University. She has taught writing to all ages at universities, colleges, and public schools in Colorado, Florida, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband, Jack Zipes, and their standard poodle.

Reviews

[Akilah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, the cover on my book showed three people playing in the snow, so I thought it was a happy fun book with some drama. THAT IS NOT THE CASE. This book is sad and painful to read but in a good way. Poor Leah's best friend lies all the time about everything and then freaking disappears, so Leah spends most of the book all lost and alone and confused. And Dines just gets everything about her confusion and loneliness and jealousy so right.