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A review by kricketa
The Secret to Lying by Todd Mitchell
3.0
invisible, average teen james turner finds an opportunity to recreate himself at a public boarding school two hours from his hometown. it starts with a sid vicious poster and a few lies about where
the scars on his arms came from. then he dyes his hair purple and begins planning pranks with his roommate. soon he's lying about everything. but no matter what he does, he can't impress the lovely
and aptly named ellie frost.
when he starts having vivid, crazy dreams and getting IMs from a mystery "ghost" friend, james' life takes a turn for the dangerous. can he really run from his old self? who was he, anyway?
a lot of reviews mention how similar this was to "looking for alaska" by john green, plotwise, and i definitely noticed this. unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as good, writingwise. i know it's not really fair to compare the two...but seriously, the plots are SO SIMILAR. i'm also going to have to complain about the dream world james visits many nights. IT WAS SO BORING. the symbolism was ridiculously obvious and the girl trapped in the pod was ripped off from coraline. so cheesy and boring.
still, the book gripped me enough that i wanted to know what happened next. i'll try it on some teen guys and see what they think.
the scars on his arms came from. then he dyes his hair purple and begins planning pranks with his roommate. soon he's lying about everything. but no matter what he does, he can't impress the lovely
and aptly named ellie frost.
when he starts having vivid, crazy dreams and getting IMs from a mystery "ghost" friend, james' life takes a turn for the dangerous. can he really run from his old self? who was he, anyway?
a lot of reviews mention how similar this was to "looking for alaska" by john green, plotwise, and i definitely noticed this. unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as good, writingwise. i know it's not really fair to compare the two...but seriously, the plots are SO SIMILAR. i'm also going to have to complain about the dream world james visits many nights. IT WAS SO BORING. the symbolism was ridiculously obvious and the girl trapped in the pod was ripped off from coraline. so cheesy and boring.
still, the book gripped me enough that i wanted to know what happened next. i'll try it on some teen guys and see what they think.