Sunday 19 February 2017

The Darkest Lie

The Darkest Lie

The Darkest Lie is by Pintip Dunn.

“The mother I knew would never do those things.
But maybe I never knew her after all.”

Clothes, jokes, coded messages…Cecilia Brooks and her mom shared everything. At least, CeCe thought they did. Six months ago, her mom killed herself after accusations of having sex with a student, and CeCe’s been the subject of whispers and taunts ever since. Now, at the start of her high school senior year, between dealing with her grieving, distracted father, and the social nightmare that has become her life, CeCe just wants to fly under the radar. Instead, she’s volunteering at the school’s crisis hotline—the same place her mother worked.

As she counsels troubled strangers, CeCe’s lingering suspicions about her mom’s death surface. With the help of Sam, a new student and newspaper intern, she starts to piece together fragmented clues that point to a twisted secret at the heart of her community. Soon, finding the truth isn’t just a matter of restoring her mother’s reputation, it’s about saving lives—including CeCe’s own…

The Breakdown:
1. Dunn not only gives a decent  murder mystery, but deals with some heavy subjects in it including the lose of a parent and child pornography.  I think Dunn does the best job with dealing with how Cece learns to live again after the scandal and death of her mother.

2. Cece is definitely a complicated character. She is having serious trust issues after the death of her mother, an supposed suicide after a student claimed to be having an affair with her.  She cannot reconcile the mother with knew with these revelations, and is angry at her mother for it. She has trouble trusting other students because of the way she was treated after her mother's death.  As she digs into her mother's past, she learns that there was more to it and the scandal and her death that what it seems.

3. I really liked Sam.  He seemed like a  good guy that wanted to help others.  In fact, I get a little offended on his behalf with Cece keeps suspecting him of having darker motives for wanting to be with her and help her.

4. My biggest disappointment was that Dunn, for me at least, tipped off the killer/pornographer before the reveal. There was a conversation between them and Cece, and I just knew by what they were saying that was who it was. Thus, I was not surprised with Cece figured it out.

To Read or Not to Read:
Read

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