A thank you goes out to Knopf Delacorte Dell Young Readers Group for sending me this book to read and review.
TITLE: If the Witness Lied
AUTHOR: Caroline B. Cooney
GENRE: YA
RATING: 3 Stars
I know that author Caroline B. Cooney is a very popular YA author and that she is known for writing about current events and tackling them face on.
The storyline behind If the Witness Lied is very interesting and I thought it was quite original. This novel is both a mystery AND a difficult, but touching look at a family that has been torn apart by the untimely death of the young parents. While the kids are trying to accept their death and the fact that it might have been caused by one of the kids, their "aunt" decides that one of the ways they can deal with their grief is to talk about on TV and she manages to get a television network interested in doing a reality show on the kids. But Jack, one of the children will not let this happen and he will certainly not let baby Tristan on national TV for all to explore.
As Jack mounts his own defense, he comes to discover some very, very serious information that will turn all that he has known on its ear and the family will never be the same again.
As I mentioned, this storyline is quite riveting. I felt for all the children who are trying to deal with the death of their parents, each in their own ways. Cooney does a fine job of fleshing out each character and you can feel that all is not right here - and this will become more and more obvious as the story unfolds.
There is also quite a nice clever twist, somewhere towards the 3/4 of the book that had me going "wow" and Cooney does an excellent job of setting up the premise and then introducing the twist. This is a solid thriller/mystery.
However, I just could not get past the writing. Cooney's writing is just not my thing. She never seems to manage to simply detail an event or a character - her words are always a little stilted for my taste and this seriously removed some of the pleasure of this book for me.
5 comments:
Oh I like Caroline B Cooney. My daughter has read quite a few of her books. One of her favorites was The Terrorist. Have you ever read that one? This one sounds good!
Too bad the writing didn't live up to the plot.
This sounds interesting.Another one for my TBR list.At this rate I will need another pair of eyes to read all these books.
That sounds like a really good book - and a very original plot - I'm going to add this to my to-read list.
I LOVE HER BOOKS.
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