The Deal: Everyone around Sophie Quinn thinks she's the town slut, having committed the ultimate crime in her small, military town: cheating on her deployed marine boyfriend Carey. Since Carey's deployment, Quinn has put up with all kinds of bullying from her former friends, teachers and even her own father seems more ashamed of her than ever, mentally linking her to her own mother- who ran off on them years before.
But things aren't always what the seem. The truth is that Quinn didn't cheat, she and Carey aren't even together anymore but she is keeping a big secret for him, and taking the fall while he's away. Quinn had even gotten good at dealing with it, being invisible; until Carey goes MIA and the entire town seems to turn on her once again.
The only respite she gets is when she's at the local V.A. hospital, hanging out with George, an 80 something veteran and former war photographer who encourages Quinn to follow her own passion for photography.
As the days go by without any news of Carey, Quinn's life keeps on turning more and more complicated.
My Thoughts: I didn't love Corrine Jackson's If I Lie, I read it all in one sitting because I wanted to see how it ended but I didn't love it.
See, a big part of the plot has to do with The Big Misunderstanding trope, and in this case I didn't find said misunderstanding very compelling, and Quinn's reasoning had way too many holes. The person she 'cheated' with was very wishy-washy and I didn't even like him for the most part.
Carey's secret was problematic, and I can totally see why he wanted to keep it but why he had to drag Quinn into it? that just never made sense to me. It was overly complicated and dramatic.
I did like Ms. Jackson's narrative, but I didn't enjoy the plot. It's very readable though.
I hate when this happens! The writing itself isn't bad but the plot devices don't work for you :/ I'm curious to know what the big secret is now.
ReplyDelete