The Lying Game by Sara Shepard

Title: The Lying Game
Author: Sara Shepard
ISBN: 9780061869709
Publisher: Harper Teen
Page #: 307
Source: From my public library

Summary:
"The worse part of being dead is that there's nothing left to live for. No more kisses. No more secrets. No more gossip. It's enough to kill a girl all over again. But I'm about to get something no one else does - an encore performance, thanks to Emma, the long-lost twin sister I never even got to meet.

Now Emma's desperate to know what happened to me. And the only way to figure it out is to be me - to slip into my old life and piece it all together. But can she laugh at inside jokes with my best friends? Convince my boyfriend she's the girl he fell in love with? Pretend to be a happy, carefree daughter when she hugs my parents good night? And can she keep up the charade, even after she realizes my murderer is watching her every move?"
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First Lines:

"I woke up in a dingy claw-foot bathtub in an unfamiliar pink-tiled bathroom. A stack of Maxims sat next to the toilet, green toothpaste globbed in the sink, and white drips streaked the mirror."
Page 1
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Review:

I'm just going to preface this review by saying that I didn't read the Pretty Little Liars series by the same author. I have, however, gotten completely addicted to the tv show... not that it means anything. We all know how things get translated into movie/tv. Not well :). So I figured I would pick this book up instead of trying to start a series that has so much to it.

The story is about twin sisters who have never met. One living a privileged life (Sutton), the other in foster care and bad situations (Emma). Emma learns about her twin and sets out to find her - only to realize that she's been murdered. She inserts herself into Sutton's life and tries to figure out what has happened. Emma learns a lot more about Sutton than she ever thought possible.

You're seeing the story through the eyes of Sutton, who is now destined to haunt her twin. There are a few times I forgot that and had to reread parts of it... there's a few bits where she interjects her own feelings about something. And it's very interesting that Sutton's ghost self remembers nothing of her old life. Watching your life play out before you could show you more about yourself than ever before. I can't imagine doing that.

The story is a good mystery and you start to suspect every person that Emma comes in contact with. Even the people that Sutton would have trusted the most. That's one of the things that really kept me interested in the story - trying to figure out who would have killed her. Especially since that person is threatening Emma with what they know and what the will do to her if she tells. Very spooky.

Honestly, I do find it hard to believe that people didn't recognize Emma as different. Yes, they are identical twins... but you know they have to have totally different manarisms. Definitely if they've grown up separately and have never seen each other. Emma's reactions to things are totally different than Sutton... just their faces are the same. Of course, that sort of plays into things toward the ending - that people probably know it, but they aren't saying anything because it makes them guilty.

Recommending this book will be easy to the people who love a good mystery, but shrowded in chick lit. Kinda :). I do feel the similarities to PLL, but it's got its own character. I'll be reading the next book in the series to see where the story is heading. It's definitely worth figuring out how things are going to turn out.
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