Review of The Truth Beneath The Lies by Amanda Searcy
Genres: Thriller, Contemporary
Pages: 336
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: 12/12/2017
Fight or Flight.
All Kayla Asher wants to do is run. Run from the government housing complex she calls home. Run from her unstable mother. Run from a desperate job at No Limit Foods. Run to a better, cleaner, safer life. Every day is one day closer to leaving.
All Betsy Hopewell wants to do is survive. Survive the burner phone hidden under her bed. Survive her new rules. Survive a new school with new classmates. Survive being watched. Every minute grants her another moment of life.
But when fate brings Kayla and Betsy together, only one girl will live.
This is the first Young Adult book I've read and reviewed in four years and it really did feel like a welcome home story, with many familiar themes - coming of age, difficult relationships... and a good old fashioned plot twist that I'd already guessed by the end of the first chapter. Either I'm a magician when it comes to plot twists or the authors need to try harder.
I liked the switch between Kayla and Betsy each chapter, as they were very different people. Kayla seemed youthful and hopeful for the future, while Betsy had pretty much given up on her life and seemed to be waiting for it to end. Kayla's stuck in a dead end job, while still in high school and struggling with the way she's treated by her friends when she meets Jordan, who seems to offer a better life. Betsy is living in a new town, with new friends but is too scared to let anyone in, in case they get hurt or worse.
It was interesting to watch the character development of these two girls, as Kayla starts to question Jordan's friend and the bodies of young girls her age start piling up her world gets darker, while Betsy's world starts looking more promising after she meets a pregnant girl called Happy and practically becomes part of her family. It was really cleverly done contrast and perfectly timed too.
With it being a fairly big plot twist I was expecting a bit more of a TAADAAH, pull the satin sheet off moment but it was written as if this was knowledge that was known throughout the whole story. This is true in my case but many Goodreads reviewers were surprised (I'm not jealous honest). This section of the book was were it really started to go downhill.
While the majority of the book reads like a contemporary novel, three quarters of the way in the plot is explained better but unfortunately it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Parts of it felt thrown in for shock value and others could have done with more thinking about because there were events that would never have happened in this world.
Still, I did get that moment where I close the final page and want to sob a little to myself, so it wasn't all bad. The majority of it was very, very good and Amanda really knows how to write about well rounded characters instead of cardboard cut outs, which is a difficult thing to do.
I am currently reading this one. Not very far into it but excited to pick it up and really get into it.
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