Book Review | Book Chatter

The Lying Game
By Ruth Ware
Gallery/Scout Press, 9781501156205, March 2018, 416pp.

The Short of It:

School girls, up to no good.

The Rest of It:

The story alternates between the past and present. Isa, Thea, Fatima and Kate attended Salten, a boarding school for girls where they participated in “The Lying Game”. For kicks, they told lies to their fellow classmates for points. It was a silly game but kept them occupied and sometimes the consequences of such lies got them in quite a bit of trouble with administration.

One night, their loyalty to each other is called into question when something goes wrong and they are forced to do something that they hope will never resurface again.

Fast forward to adulthood. The girls are now women, some married and with kids but when Kate sends them a text saying, “I need you.” All three come running.

The Lying Game had a lot of promise but it was a bit long, over 400 pages and the secret wasn’t all that juicy. Perhaps the length of the book watered down the big reveal or I didn’t completely buy how close these girls were to each other. It kept me entertained and I was eager to turn the pages but so much of it centered around Isa and her infant daughter who required constant feeding and a lot of the same statements were made over and over again which made me think a good editing job would have really improved the reading experience.

I’ve read Ware before and some of her books are great and others just so-so. This one was good but it could have been a lot juicier, in my opinion.

Source: Purchased
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Just Mercy
By Bryan Stevenson
Spiegel & Grau, 9780812984965, August 2015, 368pp.

The Short of It:

Haven’t seen the movie yet but the book will be one that I remember for a long, long time.

The Rest of It:

A long time ago, I was listening to a podcast and one of the people being interviewed mentioned Just Mercy as a book she would never forget. I immediately made a note to read it and then decided to pitch it for my book club to discuss. But then there was a school shooting and the meeting had to be rescheduled. Sad, but true.

So it should come as no surprise that Just Mercy is scheduled for this month’s discussion, right smack in the middle of a pandemic. I knew enough about the book to know that the topic is a heavy one. Bryan Stevenson’s fight to address Capital Punishment and how it affects minorities, the poverty stricken, and even young children, did not seem like a topic I could handle during quarantine but I didn’t want to postpone the discussion again so I dug in.

Very glad I did.

This is a book that everyone needs to read. Young, old, in school, out of school. I was expecting a very depressing read but this memoir, to my surprise, was not depressing at all. I found it to be full of hope. Stevenson’s passion for his clients and the way he often went above and beyond what is expected of a lawyer lifted me up in a way that I wasn’t expecting. Honestly, Stevenson is a form of superhero I can get behind. He is the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative and even that sounds formidable and it is.

His memoir covers many cases and challenges but centers around one particular client, Walter McMillan. McMillian had a solid alibi for his whereabouts the day a young woman was killed but it didn’t matter because the town needed a suspect and so the accusations stacked against Walter. How? Corruption, racism, people not wanting to be wrong.

When they say some people wear capes, I agree. Some do. Checkout Stevenson’s TED Talk and you’ll see what I mean.