From the Bookshelf of Challenge: 50 Books…

The Lying Game

Ruth Ware

Start date: December 1, 2017

Finish date: December 31, 2017

Discussion: Group Reads

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What Members Thought

Jan 22, 2019 Barb rated it it was amazing

Our book club really enjoyed this book. It gave us lots to discuss.

Four teenagers play the Lying Game while in school. They find great fun in lying to their teachers and other students at their boarding school in southern England. Those who tell the lies are “us” and those others are “them”. The game has rules, however, with the key rule being they don’t lie to each other. A serious situation arises and the girls find they must band together and keep a huge secret. In addition, to avoid a scanda Our book club really enjoyed this book. It gave us lots to discuss.

Four teenagers play the Lying Game while in school. They find great fun in lying to their teachers and other students at their boarding school in southern England. Those who tell the lies are “us” and those others are “them”. The game has rules, however, with the key rule being they don’t lie to each other. A serious situation arises and the girls find they must band together and keep a huge secret. In addition, to avoid a scandal all four girls are expelled. They leave school under a dark cloud, but they take their secret with them.

It is seventeen years later and the girls are now 30, two of them married with children. They have not been in contact for many years, but they receive an urgent message to all return to Kate’s home near Selton where their school is located. The secret is in danger of being discovered.

At this time of their lives, they now have more to lose than they did as teens. Discovery of the lie they told and the secret they kept could cause them to lose their careers, their families, and possibly even their freedom. But, do they all really know what happened? Has someone broken the first rule of the lying game.

The story is centered around the small clique of four misfits who feel they must push others away before they are rejected themselves. But as they discover as adults, the wall of lies they built to keep others out may have trapped them inside. Together the four girls discovered alcohol, drugs and their sexuality. Yet, they may have lost more than they gained by learning to lie and keep others from learning who they truly are. And, now as adults they are questioning if they can truly trust each other.

The secrets being kept as information surfaces cause the reader to bounce back and forth wondering where the threat may be coming from. The atmosphere is tense as you question where the truth lies and if it can be admitted to anyone without harm coming to all of them.

Very tense and readable, we found the book a great puzzle. Several of us listened to the audio book and felt the reader gave an excellent performance.

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