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The Art of Lying
New York City, a young artist on the rise, and closely held family secrets — what could go wrong? Rachel Addison has just turned eighteen and lives on the Upper East Side with her parents. All she wants to do is paint and have an amazing solo gallery show downtown, but her barely-functioning alcoholic mom is acting very weird lately, her dad is never around when she needs him, and then there's Noah — the handsome older man that appears in her life right when she doesn’t need a distraction. When the complications of life get to be too much, Rachel escapes back to her hometown in New Jersey, where she discovers a shocking truth about her birth. This secret turns her life inside out and upside down. Back in the city, she struggles to finish her last painting and deal with the complicated relationship she now has with her parents. To top it all off, Rachel doesn’t even know who she is anymore or what to do with these feelings she has for Noah. The Art of Lying is an emotional, but poignant Young Adult coming of age story written by Jennifer Gregson. If you like stories by John Green, Rainbow Rowell, or Julie Murphy then you will love Jennifer’s debut novel about early fame, first love, and family relationships. Buy The Art of Lying and become entangled in Rachel’s story today.
284 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 14, 2018
11 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 23, 2018
I'm actually disappointed with this because when I saw the summary, I was really excited. I thought it would be just the sort of book I'd love. And honestly, the premise for it could've been great.
But the book itself? Nah. The writing is really amateur, full of typos and really obvious grammatical errors. It also reads really emotionlessly, like the characters are just going through the motions of things and don't actually care about what's going on in their lives. Things happen really quickly, with no in-depth detail of what's going on or how Rachel feels about it. I couldn't bring myself to care at all for any of these people. Usually even in a bad book I tend to have a character I like, because most authors can pull off one good character in a sea of bad choices, but honestly they were all so robotic that they didn't present a reason for me to care.
On top of everything else, the book is chock full of info dumps via the awkward dialog. You don't find things out gradually, you aren't shown what Rachel's life is like, how she got where she is, what she's like as a person. You're told in page-long paragraphs of nothing but stilted dialog. Which is probably one of the main reasons it's hard to care about any of the characters, since apparently most of what they do is sit around and tell each other what they're thinking or planning on doing because of this reason or that reason.
So unfortunately I'd have to say to take a pass on this one if you were considering it.
But the book itself? Nah. The writing is really amateur, full of typos and really obvious grammatical errors. It also reads really emotionlessly, like the characters are just going through the motions of things and don't actually care about what's going on in their lives. Things happen really quickly, with no in-depth detail of what's going on or how Rachel feels about it. I couldn't bring myself to care at all for any of these people. Usually even in a bad book I tend to have a character I like, because most authors can pull off one good character in a sea of bad choices, but honestly they were all so robotic that they didn't present a reason for me to care.
On top of everything else, the book is chock full of info dumps via the awkward dialog. You don't find things out gradually, you aren't shown what Rachel's life is like, how she got where she is, what she's like as a person. You're told in page-long paragraphs of nothing but stilted dialog. Which is probably one of the main reasons it's hard to care about any of the characters, since apparently most of what they do is sit around and tell each other what they're thinking or planning on doing because of this reason or that reason.
So unfortunately I'd have to say to take a pass on this one if you were considering it.
March 28, 2022
This is a wonderful story about a young girl finding herself. The suspense kept me turning pages and the author didn't disappoint. Jennifer's descriptions of New York made me want to go visit again! She truly captured the feel of the city and what a young artist might experience. I especially enjoyed the way she conveyed the main character's artistic process.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews