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A review by cctblog
Lies We Tell Ourselves by Amy Matayo
4.0
This book! It is so, so good. Emotionally engaging with characters you want to hug (or slap, depending), Lies We Tell Ourselves definitely doesn't live in fantasyland. It deals with real-life issues like child abuse, dysfunctional relationships, mental illness, and the emotional baggage that goes along with a rough childhood.
Presley and Micah are two very broken people who meet as children and form an incredibly co-dependent relationship. When Lies We Tell Ourselves begins, the two have been loving—and hurting—each other for the better part of two decades. While the novel does contain romance, I'd hesitate to label it a romance; really, it's far more about Micah and Presley each discovering their own value and taking strides to work through prior hurt than it is about falling in love.
The novel is told in first person present tense from three alternating perspectives: Micah's, Presley's, and Mara's. First person present tense doesn't always work for me, but here it feels very intimate and personal, and it helped me to understand the characters (even Mara, who is ... difficult to like).
Really, I have just one criticism: Most of the novel takes place within six months to a year, but at the 80% mark (according to my Kindle copy), the main story ends and the epilogue begins. It jumps ahead multiple times before finally ending roughly four years later. And all the jumping forward just left me feeling a bit off kilter. Matayo did a good job of filling the reader in on what happened in the time that was skipped, but it still seemed odd to me to have such a large chunk of the book be the epilogue and to have so many time jumps. It's a bold artistic choice that didn't land with me; however, most readers probably won't care as much as I did.
So that's why I'm giving this book 4 stars instead of 5. But don't let that deter you—this is a magnificent novel with a powerful message: you are loved and you have worth, no matter what anyone has told you or what you tell yourself.
Note: If you're a longtime Matayo reader, watch out for a fun reference to The Wedding Game!
Disclosure of material connection: I was provided a copy of this book by the author. All opinions in this review are my own.
Presley and Micah are two very broken people who meet as children and form an incredibly co-dependent relationship. When Lies We Tell Ourselves begins, the two have been loving—and hurting—each other for the better part of two decades. While the novel does contain romance, I'd hesitate to label it a romance; really, it's far more about Micah and Presley each discovering their own value and taking strides to work through prior hurt than it is about falling in love.
The novel is told in first person present tense from three alternating perspectives: Micah's, Presley's, and Mara's. First person present tense doesn't always work for me, but here it feels very intimate and personal, and it helped me to understand the characters (even Mara, who is ... difficult to like).
Really, I have just one criticism: Most of the novel takes place within six months to a year, but at the 80% mark (according to my Kindle copy), the main story ends and the epilogue begins. It jumps ahead multiple times before finally ending roughly four years later. And all the jumping forward just left me feeling a bit off kilter. Matayo did a good job of filling the reader in on what happened in the time that was skipped, but it still seemed odd to me to have such a large chunk of the book be the epilogue and to have so many time jumps. It's a bold artistic choice that didn't land with me; however, most readers probably won't care as much as I did.
So that's why I'm giving this book 4 stars instead of 5. But don't let that deter you—this is a magnificent novel with a powerful message: you are loved and you have worth, no matter what anyone has told you or what you tell yourself.
Note: If you're a longtime Matayo reader, watch out for a fun reference to The Wedding Game!
Disclosure of material connection: I was provided a copy of this book by the author. All opinions in this review are my own.