Book Review #14 The lying game by Ruth Ware

 

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

About the book:

IT ISN'T A GAME WHEN SOMEBODY DIES

The text message arrives in the small hours of the morning: I need you.

Isa drops everything, takes her baby daughter and heads straight to Salten. She spent the most significant days of her life at boarding school on the marshes there, days which still cast their shadow over her.

Isa and her three best friends used to play the Lying Game, competing to convince people of outrageous stories. Now, after seventeen years of hiding the truth, something terrible has been found on the beach. The friends' darkest secret is about to come to light...

About the Author

 

Ruth Ware is an international number one bestseller. Her thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Lying Game, The Death of Mrs Westaway and The Turn of the Key have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including the Sunday Times and New York Times. Her books have been optioned for TV and film and she is published in more than 40 languages. Ruth lives near Brighton with her family.

My take

This is a story of four friends, Isa, the protagonist, Thea, Fatima and Kate, who have spent a year together in a boarding school in Salten, each landing there due to different circumstances, but gelling to each other for life. They are so stuck to each other, that they alienate themselves from everyone around them. Nor is anyone of high opinion about them, especially because of the lying game they play with people around.

Something terrible happens in that year, that forces the girls to drop out of school before the scheduled time, and the four decide to carry the secret to their graves. But seventeen years later, something happens, and circumstances force the four of them, each busy in her own life, to come and face the consequences of their past actions.

The way the author writes a story is definitely very engaging. She describes everything in such vivid details that it is impossible not to form a mental image. She describes the coastal region of Salten with the salty waters of the Reach and the marsh land, the old dilapidated Tide Mill that is home to Kate and foster home to the others during that one year they are together, the Salten house, which in itself is a mysteriously intriguing place for girls, in such a way that I actually felt as if I was there, experiencing the humid, salty air and feeling the marsh beneath my feet.

There are not many characters, and there isn’t really a lot of suspense other than what exactly happened all those years ago. The build up is very slow, and rather than the suspense, descriptions take up most of the part of the story. Another downside was the repetitions, and ill developed aspects of the characters. The relationship of Isa with her partner Owen could have been given some more space, and the way she treats him, that would have actually warranted him leaving her, has been ill explained. Even Mark Wren never actually comes alive, he is just always in memories or background, and whatever footage he receives in the book doesn’t make justice to his character. Luc was another character who was confusingly picturized, so didn’t know whether to like him or not.

As a reader, I developed a liking for Freya, the six-year-old daughter of Isa who has been greatly described, but the point is, she is just a major distraction from the whole plot. I also developed a dislike for Thea, who seemed like a pampered spoilt brat right from the beginning, and I attribute Fatima and Isa’s wayward behaviour to Thea’s peer pressure and influence, and I believe both would have led better and meaningful lives had they not met Thea in the first place.

I have read Ruth Ware’s novels before and I love her descriptive way of writing. But even though I loved the descriptions in this book, the suspense was not strong enough to keep me hooked, and the end, even though twisted, seemed far too stretched and unrealistic.

I rate it 3/5.