Liar

by Justine Larbalestier

Micah will freely admit that she’s a compulsive liar, but that may be the one honest thing she’ll ever tell you. Over the years she’s duped her classmates, her teachers, and even her parents, and she’s always managed to stay one step ahead of her lies. That is, until her boyfriend dies under brutal circumstances and her dishonesty begins to catch up with her. But is it possible to tell the truth when lying comes as naturally as breathing? Taking readers deep into the psyche of a young woman who will say just about anything to convince them—and herself—that she’s finally come clean, Liar is a bone-chilling thriller that will have readers see-sawing between truths and lies right up to the end. Honestly.

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal, Contemporary, Teen

376 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2009

About the author

Justine Larbalestier is an Australian young-adult fiction author. She is best known for the Magic or Madness trilogy: Magic or Madness, Magic Lessons and the newly released Magic's Child. She also wrote one adult non-fiction book, the Hugo-nominated The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction (Best Related Book, 2003), and edited another, Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century.

Her surname has been pronounced in several different ways, but the FAQ on her website says that Lar-bal-est-ee-air is correct:

Q: How do you pronounce your surname? A: Lar-bal-est-ee-air. It can also be pronounced Lar-bal-est-ee-ay or Lar-bal-est-ee-er. Those are all fine by me. Friends at school used to pronounce it: Lavaworm. I have to really like you to let you get away with that one, but.

Larbalestier was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. She now alternates living between Sydney and New York City.

In 2001, Justine married fellow author Scott Westerfeld.

Reviews

[Rick Riordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this book. It only took me two days to finish, but I have a feeling it may take me several years to figure out what it meant and how I feel about it. It is compelling, thought-provoking, and deeply unsettling. Our narrator, a teen girl named Micah, tells us right up front that she is a liar. She lies about everything to everybody. She promises that she is about to come clean and tell us the truth about the death of her boyfriend Zach, who is brutally murdered during their senior year. But is she telling the truth? The reader will have to sift through so many versions of reality, and so many layers of Micah’s lies, that you will be left not sure what has happened or what it means. The novel gives a whole new meaning to ‘unreliable narrator.’

Is something supernatural going on? Maybe. Or maybe not.

Is Micah a killer? Possibly, but possibly not.

Do some of the characters in the book even exist? By the end, you will not be sure.

If that sounds frustrating . . . well, it can be, but the book is also an incredible page-turner. Despite her lies or maybe-lies, Micah comes across as sympathetic. I liked her, no matter who (or what) she was. I can’t get into specifics without giving too much away, but if you want a murder mystery unlike anything you’ve ever read, check this book out. A great summer read.

[BookChampions · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the worst book I've ever read. Yes, I've said it, and I bloody well think I mean it.

The premise sounded interesting: Imagine a novel told by a pathological liar who tells the reader on page one that she's here to finally tell you the truth. The ultimate unreliable narrator--okay I get it and I'm intrigued. Then take said unreliable, narrating, pathological-liar protagonist and make her an annoying, self-involved but also self-deprecating, and really kind of bitter teenager. Within 50 pages I had had enough; I hated this character. If it wasn't for my Banned Books course, I would have abandoned it; but to have done that would have meant missing out on, ooooooh, the "Big Twist" that comes about halfway through (and I'm just going to spoil it now for you because, really, I'm doing ya a favor here): yep, you didn't guess it (because you never could have guessed it), she's a werewolf. Yep, a werewolf. Oh, so that's why she wouldn't stop talking about the way people smelled or why she likes steak sandwiches.

I wanted to throw the book across the room. Not only did I get suckered into reading a werewolf book (something I told myself I would never do...or at least I know I thought it once), but the character keeps telling me she's telling me the truth and then it turns out to be a lie--or maybe it's not a lie. So it's page 170 or something, and she's tells us she's a werewolf. But yet, she's a pathological liar, so who really knows? Oh, who cares!

The worst thing is the book ends and there is absolutely no resolution. So even if you do end up caring, you are given nothing. You don't know what's true and what's not, and it's this whole big-what-if scenario, and I guess I just wasted a day reading this horrible book to end up with nothing. It's like I had just watched that whole season of Dallas, and then I find out it's all a dream. I felt cheated because those are hours I'm never going to get back.

Larbalestier's book suffers from a lot, but the biggest is that she is trying to be too clever. If she would have just stuck with the pathological liar thing, that may have had potential. Or, if she would have just written a werewolf book, that I'm sure she would have found a market with that concept (though I don't think she truly understands how books dealing with the supernatural work). In the end, we are left with something that tries to be a bit like Kafka's The Metamorphosis, a bit like Meyer's moneymaker Twilight, and oddly a bit like some horrible phony reality-TV shows on MTV--and turns out she can't do any very well.

Avoid this one like the plague.

[Emory's Defunct Profile · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a piece of ****. The premise is intriguing- a story told from the point of view of a compulsive liar, so you can never tell how much of her story is true or what she's really thinking. I thought it would be cool, but within twenty pages I hated the character. She's nothing more than a whiny, self-absorbed brat with serious mental issues who lies constantly for the fun of it, blames all her problems on other people, and saw nothing wrong with (possibly- she keeps changing her story) sleeping with a raging jackass who obviously only pretended to care about her. Even with this character and the constant and unnecessarily confusing contradictions she keeps making, I was willing to tough it out. Then I got to the 'big twist'. BEWARE, THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD.

Micah is a werewolf. Yes, you heard me right. I picked this up thinking it was going to be some great physiological thing, and all I got was a sloppy supernatural teen novel. EXCUSE ME? YOU STRUNG ME ALONG FOR 100+ PAGES FOR THIS? Oh, and Micah might not be telling the truth. This might be another bizarre lie, like the little brother she may or may not have or the guy she may or may not have had sex with or the- well, you get my point.

I actually finished the book in the vain hope that in the last pages there might be something, anything that meant I hadn't just wasted the last three hours of my life. But that didn't happen....

...OR DID IT?! (See how annoying that is, Larbalestier?)

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Micah is a liar. You can't trust anything she says. She will lie about telling the truth, and she will lie about lying. Attention-seeker, the shrinks say. Jealous of her little brother, they say. Does she even have a brother? Maybe she just made him up. Maybe she didn't. Maybe her dad is an arms dealer, maybe he isn't. But there's one thing Micah's lies have in common: they all hide the real truth.

Now Micah's boyfriend Zach has been found, dead, in Central Park. The place where they spent so much time together. No one knew she was his after-hours girlfriend, or so she thought. Whispers are quick to sprout, but she's not the only one being accused of killing him. The truth is so much harder to tell, but Micah's determined to share it with us. It will take her a few tries to break the lying habit, with us at least, and since she's already an unreliable source, can we trust her truth?

What is Micah's big secret? How did Zach die? How are we supposed to believe her after all the lies she's told, even to us?

This book received some publicity before it's release because of a controversial decision made by the publisher to white-wash the cover. The main character, Micah, our oh-so-trustworthy narrator, is half-black. Or is it a quarter? She's described quite clearly, yet the publishers designed a cover that featured a blonde white girl. Uproar ensued, and the author gave her opinion too (which is very interesting to read, if you want to pop over for a quick visit). People won't want to read a book with a coloured girl on the cover? They should be ashamed of themselves. The opposite is true, if anything, besides the fact that there are so many young readers out there from all manner of backgrounds, who feel decidedly under-represented in the literary world. I wasn't at all surprised to meet Somalian Muslim girls in grade 10 reading Does My Head Look Big in This? - for once, a book that they could relate to.

A controversy like that isn't what made me want to read the book, though. At first, I didn't particularly want to read it at all. The blurb didn't entice me, and because of the nature of the story all the reviewers are keeping quiet about what the story's really about. Which is a good thing, because when I did get the book on a whim and start reading it, I was taken by surprise. And I like that.

Here's the deal: I'm not going to give you any clues. Micah does that, in Part One: Telling the Truth (except that she doesn't tell the truth, or not all of it). The clues build up, so that in Part Two: Telling the True Truth, her Big Secret isn't so unbelievable. It actually makes a lot of sense. The interesting thing is what role the reader takes in all this. I want to believe in her Big Secret. Not just because she succeeds in making it believable - somehow, lying about it to us after telling us she'll be truthful actually makes it more believable, not less - but because it makes the story a hell of a lot more interesting.

By Part Three: The Actual Real Truth, you'd think that you'd grow tired of Micah's lies. The opposite is true. Trying to guess what she's lying about before she 'fesses up becomes a game, a puzzle - one you probably won't win. More than that, her lies aren't cruel ones. They don't actually hurt people. And what's going through her head is a very interesting study. Even if her Big Secret is a Big Fat Lie, it could still be a metaphor for the whole teenage ordeal. Puberty, growing up, having everyone change and behave more maliciously, learning how to run the gamut and take it on the chin - or not. Moving out of the realm of childhood, where psychologically you are selfish, into adolescence where you start to learn how easily you impact other people: that's very much an integral part of this book.

The way teenagers seem to almost relish hurting their peers, especially emotionally or psychologically, is in a way a kind of experimentation, figuring out how people tick, how you can't move through the world isolated and unaffected. It's a hard period, a time when you learn consideration, self-awareness, and, hopefully, empathy (on a side note, I was sickened to hear some teenage boys from the nearby high school laughing about the woman whose baby died at Pearson International Airport recently, where they were getting ready for a holiday. She was holding the hand of her four-year-old and turned to talk to her, when the baby wiggled out of her other arm and dropped over the railing, falling two stories down and dying later in hospital. I can't imagine how devastated and guilty the mother must feel, and I wouldn't be surprised if the father secretly blames her too - but these boys hadn't discovered empathy yet and just found it funny). The motivations behind typical teenage behaviour, especially bullying and peer pressure, have been widely researched and studied, but it rarely gets as close to a true understanding as YA fiction does (or can).

Micah is a fascinating character and a strong protagonist who easily carries the story. She's frank and mature and a refreshing character after all the "good", no-swearing types who populate YA - there are many kinds of teenager, but I tend to think that the smart-mouthed, non-virginal ones get ignored: they certainly don't often get the limelight, when they definitely should.

Micah tells her story in bits, though, alternating between snatches of the past, details about her family, told in past tense, and what's happening "now", told in present tense. The tense changes enable you to switch readily, but the stop-and-start nature of her story-telling, the less-than-linear plot, does get a bit tiring. It is cleverly constructed and structured, but the constantly-interrupted flow of the narration makes you feel like you're watching an hour-long ad break, or one of those modern music videos where they don't stay on a shot for longer than a second or two, making it hard to tell what you're even looking at. Even though this structure and pacing works perfectly for the story and the way Micah reveals it, it sometimes makes it hard to really sink into it.

At the end, it's left up to the reader to decide whether Micah's telling the truth. I'm a pretty gullible reader, to be honest, which is what made this story interesting for me - I would believe what she told me because it was her story, and I was just the recipient. Whether I believe or not has no relevance on the story. So I choose to believe her, because I want to, and because it satisfies the story. If I choose not to believe her, then I wasted my time.

[Laini]

I think my head just exploded.

No spoilers, but . . . when I first finished this book, I scratched my head a little and thought I *had* it, but I wasn't totally satisfied, and then I thought about it some more, and then the explosion, and I wanted to reread it at once.

The closest comparison I can think of is Life of Pi, in which the reading of the book is enjoyable but a little unsettlingly *off*, and then at the end something is suggested that casts everything else in a new and totally devastating light. So hold on to your brains when you finish this book.

:-)

[Katie(babs) · Rating 1 out of 5]

While reading Liar, the reader is deceived from the beginning right up to the end by the unreliable narrator. Because Micah Wilkins, a pathological liar is the protagonist in this story and everything is from her point of view, the questions arise if anything she tells the reader is truth or lies on top of more lies from a very sick and delusional girl.

Liar is told in three parts. Part one is where Micah is “Telling the Truth”. We are introduced to the seventeen year old girl who lives with her parents and younger brother in a very cramped apartment in one of the boroughs of Manhattan. Micah attends a progressive school where the students can call their teachers by their first names. Micah is very strange mainly because of her looks; “she has nappy hair that is cut close to her scalp and a chest that is flat with hips that are narrow”. She doesn’t wear makeup, wears baggy clothes and because of that, in the first few days of freshman year she is mistaken for a boy from her English teacher. Micah decides to go along with it and is accepted as boy until she is finally found out. Because of this gender mistake, Micah catches the eye of Zachary Rubin, “an olive-skinned white boy who looks pale and weedy”. Even though Micah doesn’t seem to have a high opinion of Zach, she can’t get him off her mind.

Because Micah tricks her classmates, she becomes an outcast. She knows she is different from everyone else and her only joy is running in Central Park. Micah really excels at running. One day Zach comes across her at the park and they form a friendship where they jog after school. Their friendship then turns into more. Micah loves what she has with Zach even though he ignores her at school and they keep their relationship under wraps. Micah is fine with this because no one would believe that she and Zach are so close anyway.

And then Zach is found dead, murdered, but no one knows how because there are so many rumors running about how he died. And some of the rumors say that Micah killed Zach. But this couldn’t true because these two never talked or acknowledge each other’s existence. And why would he even care about Micah? He has a beautiful and popular girlfriend while Micah is loser and is known for stretching the truth.

Micah is heartbroken because she didn’t kill Zach. She has no idea why or how Zach was killed. Everyone is looking at her, assuming she knows something. But Micah doesn’t know anything. Or does she?

Part two is where Micah is “Telling the True Truth”. This is where Micah lays everything out on the table, who she truly is and her family’s background. Micah is keeping a very deep dark secret, that if found out would destroy her. She tells in great detail why she must keep this family secret under wraps because if it gets out, she is doomed.

Part three is “The Actual Truth” where Micah confesses about what she had or didn’t have with Zach and why he may have died. She comes to a few conclusions about herself and those around her, where she is sick of the lies and even though it sounds cliché, wants the truth to set her free.

The first section of Liar is excellent. Micah’s voice grabs you from the moment you are introduced to her and the mystery surrounding Zach, the young boy who may or may have been her friend, boyfriend or lover. Even though Micah is very unreliable, you can’t help but wonder if she is telling the truth about anything. You continue to read to see if she will admit about what she knows about Zach’s death and who really is responsible. This is a thriller in the true sense of the word.

Then everything went downhill so fast that I couldn’t believe it. When Micah announces the big reveal, as to who she is and why she lies, I felt like I was fooled and deceived and not in the way I was expecting. This big spoiler surrounding Micah is such nonsense and doesn’t fit the story at all. What I thought would continue to be a suspenseful who done it spins so out of control. At this point I couldn’t figure out if Micah is coming or going and if she even had a motivation for anything. I believe that from meeting Zach and being with him, where he has accepted her, she found hope, the will to turn her back on this addiction she has. But now that he is gone, she has lost all reason. She has no real personality or way of life because of her lies and spinning tales. She is like a ghost, a poor soul who has no vision or path to take in her life.

The reason I have such issues with the way things turned out is that I have never read such a book where the narrator is so mixed up and topsy turvy in her thinking. I have seen this in movies before and the closest comparison I can say to Liar are the movies Fight Club, The Usual Suspects and Memento. All these movies work in such a way because the climax, the big surprise or twist ending is very masterful in its telling. When the light bulb comes on for the audience in regards to what the characters have done and why, it’s much like having an AHA moment! There is no AHA moment in Liar. The twist with Micah just doesn’t work for me because it is so out there and doesn’t come together as I wanted.

My expectations with Liar were probably a bit too high and by the end I was a bit topsy turvy myself. At the end Micah is practically begging us to believe her outlandish lies. Some of what she has told are probable truths, while others are utter and total fantasies. The feeling I was left with was a combination of shock and disgust for Micah. She is a pathetic and sad creature.

Perhaps this was the author’s plan from the start, but it just doesn’t work for me. I guess you can say Liar is a great study into the mind of a disturbing individual, but that is all.I just didn’t care for this book at all. Her lies simply had no effect on me as the reader, except for rolling my eyes.

[Tatiana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Can someone please, please tell me what this story was about? I dig the idea of an unreliable narrator, after all, I loved both "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" and "Memento," but these stories only make sense if in the end you actually find out what exactly happened. No luck here, I am sure Larbalestier thinks she is a mighty smart writer, but the fact is the book has no point, no satisfying ending and leaves you guessing if anything in the story was true. Not fair to readers IMO, I feel cheated I invested so much time listening to this book without getting any answers.

Can't recommend it to anyone.

P.S. The highlight of the novel is a three-way making out session in a cave (if that wasn't a lie, of course).

[CaliGirlRae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whoa. This was one trippy novel. I'm a huge fan of speculative novels, am new to unreliable narrators and I knew the big twist going in (bad Rae!) but the complexities and overall haunting nature of the story took me by surprise.

As you know from the blurb, Micah is a liar. The book starts out like any other YA with life in high school and everyday living but right off the bat we discover Micah's 'boyfriend's' brutal death which shakes the school. Throughout the story, Micah unravels her life, her family and her connection with Zach's last few days. Although she promises she will tell you, the reader, the complete truth she soon ends up backtracking by switching truth for lies and vice versa.

Looking at the story as a whole and picking up clues here and there, I think the idea of Micah having a mental illness fits. I believed her at first when she described her relationship with Zach but as she revealed more about herself and their relationship, some things didn't quite add up. For instance, she lies about the last time she saw him. She lies about the fact that they slept together. She even lies about the last time she saw him and in what condition. One thing that feels like truth is when she says "I have the feeling that I cared about Zach more than he cared about me". The fact that Micah being Zach's "after hours girlfriend" didn't come out until later is telling because of how obsessed Micah seemed to be with Zach. At first she is shocked then completely numb at his death when it is revealed at school but then later on she believes she describes how she saw his dead, mutilated body in the park. Also the fact that she never really describes who Zach is as a person (his hopes, desires, family life, etc) but gets angry at others who think they know them shows some of her possession to make him hers forever. Everything thing we know of Zach is an idealized version of an object of affection.

Too much of Micah's lies are built on what she _wished_ would have happened but she backtracks to say what really happened. We can see this in how she views her brother, to the kiss between her, Sarah and Tayshawn, to the first time she was in the cave, how much she slept with Zach and even the last time she saw Zach (supposedly in the park but really in the school) which are all idealized versions of the truth.

In the real scenario, I imagine it's like this. Micah was the school outcast who kept to herself and spun lies to make herself interesting to her classmates but Zach, the popular guy, was the one she truly wanted to be with. He's handsome, funny and great at basketball but unfortunately he's already with someone and most likely doesn't return the affection. So Micah imagines she's his girlfriend after hours when no one else is around. They can't keep their hands off each other one moment but they also cuddle and slept next to each without doing anything the next. One day Micah is tired of dreaming and decides to make it a reality. She confronts him to reveal her feelings for him but when he dismisses her advances (perhaps calling her a freak as she describes him calling someone else), she becomes offended ("did Zach think that of me, too?") and then she kills him and mutilates his body to the point that he is unrecognizable (prior evidence shows that Micah has a tendency to act violently when she doesn't receive satisfactory answers or actions).

Think Psycho, only "mother" is a four legged she beast possibly mixed with a homeless kid here.

Micah's werewolf elaboration is just that, a fantasy to cover up the fact that she has a mental illness and is a killer herself. If this were a film, I could easily see it being directed by David Lynch. He excels at showing his films from the viewpoint of an unreliable narrator who "likes to tell things their own way, not necessarily the way it happened" (tm Lost Highway). Often times his characters have done something horrific or experienced such a bad life that they create a better fantasy world for themselves, but eventually the real world has a way of yanking them out head first. Micah's crimes from killing her kid brother (as confessed later on and through her elaborate negative descriptions of how she felt toward him), Zach and possibly her science teacher are too horrific for her so she creates this young homeless kid and the werewolf tale. She's a product of being in the middle of everything. Not quite boy or girl. Not quite black or white. And perhaps not quite sane or insane. The narrative keeps jumping back and forth as if two personalities are fighting for attention.

I noticed Micah delighted in the kill 'in wolf form' too much and she felt strangely relieved when the homeless kid wouldn't suffer for his crimes (perhaps a mirror to the trial which didn't convict her but sentenced her to a mental institution). Instead the homeless boy would be cared for as he was left to live with his own kind who understand who he is. It is at this point, Micah is "abandoned" by her parents at the farm, leaving only "the Greats" (her grandparents, great aunts, etc), cousins and the homeless boy. Perhaps this is where she is left off at the mental institute as well, only receiving letters from her parents to which she refuses to respond. The homeless boy mentions how they "belong here" and Micah thinks about how her life is over and she'll never see the city or Tayshawn or Sarah, nor be able to go to college on a scholarship and study biology. She even mentions how _he_ "must be insane" when I think it's a revelation about a part of herself.

Another reader mentioned that the homeless kid was the same age Micah was when she killed her brother. An interesting tidbit I hadn't thought about until now. But it is interesting to note how the boy doesn't know how old he is, where he came from and who his parents are. "I never remember the bad stuff. Only the good stuff," he tells her and the strongest recollections of the narrative focus on the physical intimacies Micah shares with others while situations dealing with darker aspects (the specifications of Zach's death, how her brother died and how "they don't like to talk about it") are glossed over.

At the end of the exchange, Micah also says "it occurs to me that is was not the white boy who was a puppy being abandoned in the woods...it was me" and I think at that point she realizes they may be one and the same person.

If we take Micah's werewolf tale as fact, there are some major things that don't add up. If the homeless kid was real (and a werewolf) and had killed Zach as he confessed, wouldn't there be previous deaths of other werewolf attacks prior to Zach's death? Or perhaps other attacks thereafter? And if so, why weren't the police or media connecting more deaths with animal-like attacks around the city? Won't there be other strays wandering aimlessly killing like this kid? As these aspects don't quite fit with prior knowledge and outside support, I believe it was Micah doing the killings and eventually she ended up in an institution for her crimes. There's a passage later on the book where Micah describes " how dark it is" in an unknown place with no windows before continuing on with her story. This along with the later mention of reporters and a trial lead to that conclusion. I found it funny when she says "I bet you think I'm telling you this story from a padded room" when that's exactly the conclusion I came to.

This is an interesting, if disturbing, peek into a young messed up mind. As a student of psychology, it's fascinating to me because it shows just how far the mind goes before it connects with a coping device that it can comfortably live with. Considering how young Micah's mind is (and possibly how young she was when she started killing at 12) it's especially chilling. Here's an interesting exercise: exchange all the instances of "werewolf" in the text with "killer" the next time you read the book.

Larbalestier is a fabulous writer with a haunting and unsettling narrative here that will stay with me for a while. I'm still on the fence as to how I feel about the book and I'm not sure I'll be rereading it (as I reserve that for entertaining and enlightening reads) but I'm glad I did give a first time read.

[Karma · Rating 3 out of 5]

So i got this book after going to ALA With bbya, and it was the first book that I read because the woman who gave it to me made it sound AMAZING. She said that there were twists and turns that would make you wonder what REALLY happened, and when she said that, I was expecting something totally different from what I got. I was expecting her to say something like, "didnt secretly date him. I secretly stalked him." or, "I'm the real killer." Just, something like that. Bt instead, she says she's a werewolf, and I'm like "Holy cheerios where did THAT come from!"
She lives in new york, and she's a normal teen, and they go through over half the book making this sound SO unfantasy, and then they throw in "Werewolf"
And in a way it upset me. I like fantasy, but I was enjoying the realness of it, and the feeling that she WAS a real person who happened to be a compulsive liar and possible killer, and when they threw in the hairy toothy freak aspect of it, the book wasn't the same to me, and I was a little less attached.
I liked, it, but I was kind of sad that it was just another author writing about the same thing every other teen author has written about. Vampires and Werewolves. It's gotten old.

[Bern · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I finished reading Liar's last page, rereading its last sentence at least five times, shivers ran up and down my spine and my mind was overrun with the same thought, only it seemed like I was thinking it a million times all at the same time: What the hell did I just read?

This book is perfection. Seriously. Look "perfection" up on a dictionary and they should have a picture of Liar as an example. This book transcends all genres it is supposed to be to become more than a YA book with a really engrossing main character; more than a thriller with a really confusing ending; this is 21st century literature at its best. It may seem like I'm exaggerating but I really do mean it.

Liar tells the story of Micah, an invisible girl who excels at lying more than at anything else. When her boyfriend Zach - or is he her boyfriend? - disappears and days later the police finds his body, Micah's whole school is in uproar. How'd he die? Who killed him? Was it his girlfriend? Did he have other girlfriends? Is Micah one of them? Is everything Micah says a lie? Yes? No? And from then on you're thrown headfirst into one of the best rides you'll ever go for.

To say Micah is an unreliable narrator would be an understatement. Micah twists the facts, changes them just so she can decide to go back and make them what they were before; she lies to her parents, lies to her "friends", lies to you, and then she apologizes for lying just so she can lie some more.

And you know what? You'll love it. You'll be anxious to see what she's lied to you next. You'll feel this drive to keep reading on, to swallow the book whole just to see what was a figment of Micah's imagination, what was a figment of yours and how the hell did she convince you, the people around her, and even herself that such an absurd thing had come to pass.

Whenever people talk about Liar and unreliable narrators, Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd comes up. See, in Agatha Christie's book the first person narrator goes on and on about an assassination, pointing fingers at different people only to in the end confess that the murderer had been himself. Liar takes a different route. By its end, Micah may have confessed to thousands of things that she may or may not have done, but it's not conclusive. You can't possibly know for sure that what she says is real is indeed and you can't trust your own judgement because the person telling you the whole story is about as reliable as a psychopath. Actually, Micah may as well be a psychopath. Or maybe she'll convince you that you're one yourself.

The beauty of it is that lying or telling the truth, you'll want to believe Micah because just like everybody else, you want it to be the truth.

And who's to say it isn't?

[Cory · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've wanted to read Liar for six months. Unfortunately, my library didn't have a copy and I didn't have enough motivation to purchase it. Now that I'm in college, I have full range to my university's YA selection. It's very expansive. I've had Liar on my desk for two weeks. I picked it up today and finished it in less than four hours.

Like Fight Club, or Psycho, or The Sixth Sense, I went into Liar knowing the big secret. That didn't make it less exciting. On the contrary, I wanted to read it despite my knowledge of the big reveal. I believe that this is called dramatic irony. You, the audience, are aware that Tom in the (500) Days of Summer is going to get dumped by Summer before you set foot in the theater. Yet, you want to watch the movie to see how they break up. Odd.

Anyway, on her website, Justine Larbalestier pleads with readers not to reveal the big secret. It's no surprise why she does this. The premise of this book is one big marketing tool. A huge secret that no one should reveal? Why wouldn't you want to read the book to be in on the secret? It's like a club.

So, I read Liar, knowing the secret. And, honestly, I'm not that impressed. Larbalestier is a talented writer, but the secret isn't that amazing. Neither are Micah's lies. Even with Fight Club, which I didn't really like, I was impressed with Palahnuik's big reveal.

Larbalestier does the exact opposite of what M. Night does with his scripts. While he's a terrible writer, you read on because you're intrigued. Larbalestier is a pretty good writer, but once the secret is revealed, there isn't anything left. She told it 50% through the book. That's it.

And while we know that Micah is a liar who's trying to tell the truth, you never find out what's the truth and what's a lie. That was my biggest problem with this novel. There's no resolution. Maybe Micah lied, maybe she didn't. And since I don't know, I don't care.

As for the character work? Well, it wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't good. I never got a decent grasp on any of the characters outside of Micah. And since she's terribly unreliable, you never know if she's lying about them. Towards the end, with the introduction of Pete, I started to skim. I didn't want to read a murder mystery. I wanted to read an examination of a compulsive liar. And since most of her lies are stupid at best, well, what's the point? This book could've been so much more, and there are hints that point to a deeper, darker novel. But it never goes there.

Since this is usually tagged as contemporary, I have suspicions that Micah was indeed lying. But the audience is never told that. We're left with trivial half truths that don't really add much to the plot, such as the three-way make-out session. While that was interesting to read, I didn't care. Finding out about the cage, Jordan, the farm -- that was interesting. But this feels like the prologue to another novel. It feels like the Before of Looking for Alaska. And I'm still waiting for the After.

Title: Liar
Author: Justine Larbalestier
Genre: Contemporary/Fantasy
Premise: Micah, a compulsive liar, promises to tell the truth after revealing that her boyfriend has been murdered
Word Count: 75,894

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Strong writing, impressive setting, and an intriguing premise will get someone to read your book. But, ultimately, the ending is what will get them to refer you to their friends. This ending worked for some, but it didn't for others. Leave your reader with a sense of satisfaction; don't cheat them because you want to be seen as that mysterious, ambiguous writer. The best books and the best movies have solid endings. Christopher Nolan leaves quite a few, "what ifs?" in his movies. But the end of Inception and The Prestige still have solid, satisfying resolutions. You could say that mystery of whether Micah is or isn't lying is a complex storytelling device, intended to leave a series of discussion behind. I call it lazy. To a certain extent, the audience has to use their imagination, but they shouldn't have to imagine an ending for you. You're the writer, they're the reader. Do your job.

[Nicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first heard of Liar when everyone was talking about the controversy surrounding the original cover. I filed it away in the back of my mind, thinking of picking the book up when it came out. I was reminded of it recently when friends started to talk about it again -- through having read it, now -- and put it on my last minute Christmas list. Cue me getting it in the mail yesterday, and being almost unable to resist the lure of the first page, which starts with the hook, "I was born with a light covering of fur."

If you don't enjoy unreliable narrators, step away right now. Micah is as unreliable as you can get, and the whole book peels back -- or layers on -- more of her lies.

For the first part of the book, it could be the story of a normal teenager -- one who has had bad things happen to her, and who is a loner, yes, but one who is essentially like those around her. It doesn't stay like that, though: if you're not a fan of fantastical elements, you probably want to step back now.

The thing with this book is that there are at least two ways of reading it. It's a delicate balance to walk, but Larbalestier does, in my opinion, walk it well. It wasn't wholly unpredictable, but I have been spoiled a little by reading other people's reviews. If you can, and this book sounds interesting to you, then try to go into it knowing as little as possible -- just knowing that Micah is a liar (not a spoiler: it's in the title).

The other thing that pleased me was the fact that the book has non-white characters -- chiefly non-white characters, in fact -- and LGBT content, plus a generally sex-positive attitude. There's totally non-explicit sexual references, there's an understanding of teenagers feeling and dealing with desire, and I didn't get a 'sex is bad, hush, we don't talk about sex' vibe from it.

(It irks me that there are likely people reading this review thinking, 'I'd better not give this to my teenage daughter.' There's nothing in this that would have damaged my fragile fourteen year old psyche. It's just people.)

I realise this doesn't tell you much about how I, personally, felt about this book: I read it within the space of an afternoon, and kept stopping myself after every fifty pages so I could drag it out more and enjoy it for that bit longer. When I put it down, I already had a list of people I want to recommend it to.

[Sarai · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was crazy.

Micah is a pathological liar who is dealing with her boyfriend's sudden death. The book is divided into three parts, Part One: Telling the Truth, Part Two: Telling the True Truth and Part Three: The Actual Real Truth. It's a big guessing game from start to finish.

The book goes back and forth, before Zach's death and after, as well as short glimpses into Micah's early childhood. After reading about her childhood, her family history, her personal 'truth', and all of her inner fears, doubts, and feelings of loneliness, I still didn't feel like I truly knew Micah. And the reason for that is simple: I can't trust her.

This lack of trust is not a coincidence. It's clear that the author meant for it to be that way. That's what the book is about. Micah has lied for what seems like forever, and she's finally ready to tell you the truth. Will you believe her?

Even after unraveling the mystery and navigating the crazy twist (I avoided spoilers to I could really enjoy the story, and it was definitely an interesting twist), I still felt a disconnect. Not only did I feel like I didn't get a chance to truly know Micah, but I also didn't get a good feel of her parents or Zach. Just bits and pieces of them. The same goes for all the minor characters in this story. I don't know if this was done on purpose or what. The book is written in such a way that events are clouded in mystery and all you're left with is random fragments that you later have to fit together to make sense of what's really happened.

There were some things I didn't doubt or question in the story. Micah's love for Zach, for example. Or her feelings of loneliness. But I can't ignore what I do doubt: Is the Actual Real Truth the truth? Can I believe? I felt the foundation of the book crumbled for me towards the end, after everything was revealed, and it affected the way I felt about this story as a whole.

Once I finished the book, I was left with questions that will never get answered: Why were we introduced to Micah's brother Jordan when we never find out what big accident caused his death? Why were her parents so affected by it? Why is Pete practically absolved of all guilt after his role in Zach's death? The lack of answers is disappointing and left me dissatisfied.

While I appreciate that Larbalestier attempted something different and introduced a unique narrator, the twist and the overall plot was overshadowed by skepticism and wariness on my part.

[K. · Rating 2 out of 5]

What in the eff did I just read?!

Like...I knew going into this book that Micah was an unreliable narrator. But this was........odd.

This book in summary: "So I have this friend. And this thing happened. Okay, so I lied. The thing didn't happen. This other thing happened instead. Okay, so I lied. I don't have this friend. I made them up. Okay, so I lied. That person exists but we're not friends."

Rinse and repeat for nearly 400 pages, with a side of "Okay, so I'm a werewolf" and you pretty much have this book.

The chapters were SO SHORT that it just felt disjointed. Micah is a pretty unlikeable character. And you literally NEVER know whether in three pages time, she's going to backtrack on everything she's just said. And it definitely didn't help that it cuts back and forth in time almost constantly.

I wanted to like this book, I really did. Because I've thoroughly enjoyed the other Justine Larbalestier books that I've read, and I love the fact that this one features a biracial protagonist. But reading this was SUCH. HARD. WORK. that I just came out the other end feeling completely drained. And confused. So very, very confused.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initial Thoughts: Wow, interesting novel indeed, and not quite what I expected coming into it. I think part of my enjoyment of this novel came from listening to the narration by Channie Waites, but the other part was certainly following how interesting a narrator Micah turned out to be and describing these varied accounts. She may be a chronic liar, but she's certainly capable of telling a good story and making you think what might be the truth versus what isn't. I kept myself at an arms length through most of the story, not getting too attached to any particular thread knowing the unreliable narration of the leading character. I think I know why this book provides such a wide divide between people who love it and people who didn't - it depends upon what you take from it. For me, I followed it for the journey, and the big revelation that came about halfway into the novel - I didn't really take it as a jarring thing (then again, I wasn't thrown that much in other novels where the tone shifts into the supernatural in some measures). There's a part of me that wonders what actually happened given Micah's flawed account, but at the same time, I was fascinated by the way she manages to pull me in and sympathize with her in places.

I enjoyed this very much and hopefully I can explain it more in the full review.

Full review:

I'll fully admit that Justine Larbalestier's "Liar" had me captivated. I've never read a book with an unreliable narrator quite as fascinating as Micah was, considering her account of events kept me on my toes from beginning to end. She's by no means a perfect character - if anything, the line "My father's a liar, and so am I" tells you from the get-go that she's capable of being straightforward with her shortcomings. But the larger question that the novel presents in several spurts is just how much of the truth she's telling and in what capacity. I thought that the technique used in keeping Micah's account dangling on unseen strings was brilliant - though I suspect for readers who might want some kind of cohesive, forthright account might be seemingly frustrated with how this novel comes across.

Micah's put in the middle of a rather daunting situation in the backdrop of this novel. The boy whom she claims is her boyfriend has been killed and buzz surrounds her at school - that's one consistent piece of news in this story. A few other consistent pieces - many of the students suspect and/or are at odds with Micah herself. Most know that she's a chronic liar judging from her previous history with lying at school - from making false claims about her gender to lying about her father's occupation.

There's another secret that she's hiding at the center of her lies, revealed about midway through the novel that gives another eye to some of the ordeals Micah endures. I honestly didn't mind the turn to supernatural, and there were a few clues prior to that point where I figured it would go in that direction. I've had a history of reading several novels where the novel approaches a realistic spectrum to incorporate supernatural elements, and "Liar" actually does a great job with the transition. It helps that Larbalestier shapes a beautifully convincing voice with Micah, giving a realm where, if you take into consideration Micah's weakness and keep her accounts at arms length, it still manages to be compelling and one can sympathize with her with the way she tells her story and feel the sense of her frustration, anger, sadness, and isolation. It still plays with the readers mind as far as determining what is or isn't the truth, but the story allows you to get entangled within the web of Micah's narratives, however convoluted they are.

I thought the ending was brilliant. It's a mind trip. On one hand - you get a part of the true story, but there's a sense of speculative limbo it leaves you in as you finish the book. One that's dark, twisted, and in the same vein, remarkably intriguing. I think I understood enough, reading between the lines of Micah's account, to figure where she ended up, but I imagine if there are people who are looking for something saying "this is what actually happened" - you're not going to get it in clear cut terms. After all, Micah's a chronic liar, and that's important to consider in the collective narrative as one goes along, so that you remember never to take one piece as truth. It's really the kind of story that gives you enough to connect dots, but not enough to see the entire picture. It leaves you to work the image out for yourself, and I loved it for that.

Overall, I think its worth giving "Liar" a go. I think there are people who will certainly love or at least appreciate the dark, enticing twists and turns of this young woman's tale.

Wonderful narration of the audiobook by Channie Waites - I think she really captured Micah's voice and allowed me to connect to the character just that much more with the urgency and passion she delivers.

Overall score: 4/5

[Cat Conner · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Liar" is an excruciatingly painful read. It is about a 17 year-old girl named Micah who is living with the ramifications of her compulsive lying and the death of her "boyfriend", Zach (I say boyfriend because Micah is actually Zach's woman on the side". Larbalestier splits the novel up into sections according to Micah's willingness to tell the reader the truth about Zach, her classmates, her family, and the mysterious "family illness" from which Michah suffers. Micah changes her stories, often folding them back on themselves, taking the reader through a twisted and confusing plot line.
Under most circumstances, I would have loved to read a book about teen angst and murder (I like the mystery), but reading "Liar" was nothing short of horribly frustrating. I hated Micah, but I kept reading because I wanted to know the truth.
***SPOILER ALERT***

When I got to the end of the book, I didn't even know the truth and I was made at the narrator for messing with my head for three or four hours. Micah clearly enjoys lying and I do not like being lied to. I totally thought that Micah was going to come clean, or at the very least, that an objective voice would come through. I turned pages to get to a truth that NEVER HAPPENS! I'm okay with ambiguous endings if the journey isn't such a waste of time. This waste of time came from Micah telling the reader about her twisted lies and perceptions in a rather stuck up manner. Because Micah is too proud to ever tell the actual truth at the end of the book, the plot comes crashing down on the entire novel.

I cannot emphasize how frustrated I was reading this novel. We read for a climax, to know what happens. I felt like I was watching a never ending drama fest not even fit for ABC Family. Although I think that Larbalestier tries to pull off a provocative and brilliant ending, the ending just isn't satisfying enough to justify the ambiguity.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off, after reading the book, the cover bothers the crap out of me. That girl looks nothing like Micah, not her hair or her skin color.

With most unreliable narrators, the reader slowly picks up on the fact that the narrator is unreliable based on small clues the narrator has dropped throughout the story. Here, Micah comes straight and tells you that she is a liar, that she lies about everything. Except the story she is about to tell you. This is going to be her grand entrance into the world of telling the truth and nothing but the truth. You want to believe her, but you soon realize that that's impossible. And once the first little lies come out, you begin to question everything she's ever said to you. How much of her story is believable? All of it? Parts of it? None of it?

This book stays with you long after you read it, as you try to parcel out the fact from the fiction. And the fact that you will never know what Micah was telling the truth about and what she wasn't. So you leave with Micah having a power over you because she knows what really happened and you are only left guessing, and doubting, and trusting, and feeling confused and used.

Well done, Larbalestier, well done.

Update: I was not alone in my hatred of the cover. So many people, including the author, complained about the cover that Bloomsbury agreed to change the cover. The new cover much more accurately depicts what Micah looks like.

[Lightreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is difficult. Hard to talk about without ruining anything, and also hard to really describe as an experience, let alone rate. This is a book about a seventeen-year-old black girl who is dating someone else's boyfriend, until he is brutally murdered. She's also a liar – whether pathological to the point where she believes her own lies or merely compulsive, it remains unclear to the very end.

Yeah, difficult, because there is a lot of really great stuff here. The three movement structure with successive layers of more "truth" is built perfectly. The writing is vivid and complicated, with this lovely scattershot thematic arc of binaries mixed – Micah's race, her sexuality, her gender for a while, truth and lies, and, well, spoiler. This is a book that lies about its genre, and makes it work.

But the very success of the unreliable narrator means that I, for one, didn't get what I usually think I want from a book. You can't ever love a narrator you can't trust, and this book jerks you around from page one. In a good way – creepily and frighteningly and complexly – but there it is all the same. So I admire this book from a craft standpoint, and I keep thinking about it, but yeah. Difficult.

[Rhiannon Hart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Micah is a liar. She lies to her classmates. She lies to her parents. A boy at her school has just been murdered--a boy Micah's been involved with, a boy who is someone else's boyfriend. Micah has decided it's time to stop all the lies. She's going to tell the truth, to you. The whole truth. Honestly.

Going into this book was a very unusual experience. I usually begin a book with an open mind, ready to fall in love with the protagonist and his or her voice and character; ready to sympathise with them and see the world through their eyes. Liar was a very different experience. I went in on my guard, even with stirrings of hostility towards Micah. It says right there on the cover: she's a liar. Forewarned is forearmed. She won't catch me out.

Wrong. Micah pulls the wool over your eyes completely. And then she crows about it. You're left feeling a little hurt and moronic as she says, "You probably saw right through me, you guessed my lies, didn't you?" I was duped. Micah burst my smug little bubble. But it gets worse. Later in the book she openly mocks you. "How could you be so stupid as to believe that? Are you crazy?" I paraphrase, but you get the idea.

It would be pretty easy to dislike such an unreliable, unfriendly narrator. Wrong again. Larbalestier makes that impossible. Liar or not, Micah is intriguing and oddly likable. A lot of people have asked the author what really happened, but Larbalestier has refused to tell. I think what really happened is beside the point. What's fascinating is the journey Micah takes you on, the two narratives with their very different endings. In fact, I don't think even Larbalestier knows which one is the "truth". I don't think it was her intention for there to be a discernible truth.

I wasn't left with the most pleasant taste in my mouth when I finished this book. I don't enjoy the sensation of being deceived. It is also disappointing that the truth will not, after all, out. But Liar is a clever read, and certainly one-of-a-kind.

Even though what really happened isn't the point, I can't help but speculate. This is what I believe really happened:

SPOILERS

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Micah ended up in a mental institution. She did kill Zach, her brother and the others. She is not a werewolf. She used a knife. The filthy white boy is her alter ego, stuck at age twelve, the age at which she killed her brother. My reasoning is this: Micah's compulsive lying makes sense if she is mentally ill. It doesn't if she's a werewolf. The lies she tells aren't just to protect her and her family's wolf secret, which is the reason she gives for lying in the first place. They're to amuse herself, like the lies about kissing Sarah and Tayshawn a second time. If she's a werewolf she has no reason to lie about these things to us. Blaming all her lies on her family's history of lying doesn't make sense as they lie to protect their secret, not for fun. They are the lies of sane people with something to hide. If Micah is a werewolf, she has no reason to make up all these other lies. They just don't make sense. On the other hand, if she's a killer who likes to lie, she has every reason to make things up. Logically, then, it is more likely that Micah is a killer who lies than a werewolf.

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only honest thing Micah will ever tell anyone is that she’s a compulsive liar, and she is—a very skilled one. She’s tricked everyone from teachers and classmates to psychiatrists and her own parents into believing even the most outrageous lies—that she’s a boy, that her father is an arms dealer, just to name a couple. But why? Because for Micah, lies are so much easier—to tell and believe—than the truth. When Micah’s maybe-boyfriend Zach is killed, all Micah’s lies start to get tangled up, prompting her to find the truth—a search that can only begin once Micah starts telling the truth. But even is Micah swears what she’s saying now is true, how can you ever completely believe a compulsive liar?

Liar is a truly fascinating psychological read. I don’t think I’ve read anything quite like it. Micah is such a complex, realistic, and unique narrator, born and raised in unusual circumstances that don’t allow her to tell her truth because it’s so unbelievable. Micah is such a good liar that the reader doesn’t know truth from falsehood until Micah says it so or tell the “real” truth. This entire novel is a guessing game, but that’s part of what makes it so intriguing, the peeling away of the lies in an attempt to reveal the real truth. Larbalestier’s dissection of a compulsive liar’s psyche is entirely authentic, as I’m sure anyone who’s ever told a lie will recognize. There is power and safety in lies, and it is interesting to see how Micah uses lies due to her understanding of this. Even though I was completely thrilled with Micah’s complicated character, I was somewhat unsatisfied with the story’s ending. It was frankly anticlimactic; also, so much truth remains unknown, what little is known is muddied with all of Micah’s lies, and the questioning of the validity of Micah’s truth is very disconcerting. There’s something about Micah, though; you can’t help but like her and simultaneously be disturbed by her lying. And it’s even possible that I might believe Micah in the end.

With humor and mystery, Liar is a modern read that delves into the ambiguities of life and the very words we say and the gray areas between truth and lie. Liar is very different from the only other novel by Larbalestier I’ve read, How to Ditch Your Fairy, but fans of Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series and So Yesterday will enjoy this psychological novel.

reposted from http://thebookmuncher.blogspot.com

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read for those who enjoy a hearty, potentially contentious book discussion; one of the worst books I've read for those who don't care for ambiguity and frustration. Immediately upon finishing it I flipped back to the start and began rereading, until I'd completely skimmed through the whole book again. I've just browsed through the other Goodreads reviews here and disagreed with the conclusions reached by at least half of those marked as spoilers. I'm dying to delve into this book with others in an attempt to figure out the truth behind the lies--but at this point I'm feeling it's constructed so carefully it's possible to only have theories and opinions with no way of really knowing, regardless of how carefully we comb through the text for clues. It's brilliant that way.

And that paragraph was intentionally vague. I think the less you know about this book going into it, the better. Just know that the title is as apt a one as there is. Micah is a liar. That's the one and only thing I'm sure about at this point. She tells her story, then retells it, then revises it. She admits to lies and then admits the admission was a lie. She lies by omission. She takes the concept of unreliable narrator to new places. This book is a mystery; a murder mystery, an identity mystery, a plot mystery. It might be only a few small details are lies or it might be most of the book is a lie. I'm still not sure.

***SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS***

[Sierra Randall · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok so at the beginning of the book the narrater, Micah, says that she's a liar but she is going to tell the complete truth about what happened to her. Suprise, suprise, she lied.
The lie that stood out the most was she said she had a brother, then she said she lied, she never had a brother, THEN she says ok i lied yet again. I had a brother but i killed him. and that's how it was thru-out the entire book. i would be reading along and suddenly she'd say, "oh yeah, well the last few pages didn't actually happen, i made that up. here's how it really went."
also there were a bunch of plot lines messily tied together. first, her boyfriend is mysteriously murdered and she has to figure out who did it. second, her promise to give up lying, her history of lies plus the history of her family. third kinda popped out in the middle/end of the book. Micah says something like "remember that light amount of fur i told you i was born with? well, i had that cuz im a werewolf."
somehow the plots are twisted together to make a stupid ending where she lives happily ever after. ok not really. her parents end up kicking her out of the house and she gets a running scholarship.

[Natverse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always talk about this book in my reviews because I absolutely adore it. I didn't really know much about this book when I first started it, so that saved me from a spoiled surprise.

There are very few books I can say I've loved with an "unresolved ending". I went through many of the reviews that gave this artistic look into a pathological liar's POV, and I want to address the common problems people have with the story.



The book is divided into three parts. Part one is her as a normal teen girl/pathological liar. Part two is her using her compulsive lying to keep her real secret: she's a werewolf. And I'll get to part three later.

1. She's a pathological liar. First, you should know some background information. From what I already know about the phenomenon, the lies may not be entirely convoluted and fantastical. There is usually an element of truth to them, especially because compulsive lying involves the careful deceiving of oneself. Now, if you keep that in mind, some things make a weird sort of sense. Like her odd case of lycanthropy. Her transformation almost obviously coincides with aspects of puberty. And, let's face it, this is not the first parallel between transforming into a werewolf and getting your period (ladies). The full moon? The aching? Hair everywhere?

2. She's a werewolf? To be honest, you're really not going to sympathize with this entire portion of the book, if you don't like being confused and lied to. Not that I like being lied to, but I can get why Micah would lie to protect herself and her family. I can respect that. I also respect that compulsive lying isn't a simple fix. You don't just say to yourself: "today I'll stop lying". It's the same with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).

If you are sick of reading werewolf books, that should be okay, because this really isn't about the werewolf-transformation or struggle. It's about her struggle as a liar and an outcast in her family. It's supposed to be about her trying to fit in, but not getting the help she needs.

If the reader did not get that message in the book, I'm not sure they were really reading it.

3. It was really confusing because she's a liar and I can't trust her perspective. That has to be one of the most ignorant things I've ever heard. You're assuming anyone else's perspective is trustworthy. That's like saying "hey this guy says he didn't physically assault that girl, and I know he's not a liar, so his perspective is probably true/honest." Or more accurately, it's like saying your history books are 100% on the ball about what "actually happened". Winston Churchill once said that "history is written by the victors". Now, a non-pathological liar POV may be a little more accurate, but all memory is subjective to our own small additions and alterations. Just the other day I was convinced I invented leg warmers.

I admit that I was a bit more wary of Micah's information when she admitted to her lying ways, but then I sort of fell for her. I struggled through the transformations with her; the horrible fate or non-fate of her brother; and exploring sex.

4. She is self-absorbed and selfish. So is every other teenager. How is this news?

5. She blames every one else for her problems. She has serious issues. Um, let me get this straight, you decided to sit down and read a book about a pathological liar and that is the only psychological problem you could pinpoint? I can't wait until you get to the grown up books! Micah is not advertised as perfect, so I'm not sure why readers are complaining about her faults. If you want a book full of one-sided characters there's this "saga" I know of...

6. I don't like fantasy or supernatural books. This book was deceptive. I could actually shoot myself in the face right now. But hey, did you know this book is about a compulsive liar?

7. I couldn't keep track of the lies. Make a list.

8. I can't believe I wasted my time reading that. I absolutely hate anything by Dickens and I still spent my precious time reading all of his works. If you can't even sit through a 300-page book that you dislike, I am afraid school will be (or probably is) very difficult for you.

9. There is no resolution. That was so unsatisfying. This is where I get to part three: the revelation of Micah's situation. She's been sent away from her parents and claims to be writing at some sort of "dorm" situation (at college), but this is where things get murky and a little depressing. This is where the truth of everything is really questioned. Because she is likely not with her parents, and she is not happy. Personally, I suspect her parents finally found her help and that she's living with others seeking help. You know, Girl, Interrupted style. But these loose ends exist on purpose. It adds to the lies and the question of which parts of Micah's lies are actually the truth.

It almost seems that her lies are unraveling around her as she's writing, however. Let me explain: the first part she seems tightly wound, secretive and adamant about sticking to her compulsion. The lies are small; believable.

In the second part it's almost as if something has disturbed Micah's resolve completely. Her lies spin out of control. She is telling such far-fetched lies, such as being a werewolf and causing her brother's death (or him existing at all), that it makes you feel as though she's panicked. Almost like she's holding on to her lies for dear life; letting them spin out of control so she can be engulfed by them. Anything to avoid dealing with her present life and actual situation.

The final part almost seems to accept Micah's fate. Her lies have weakened their hold on her mind. She can't completely deceive herself anymore. It's almost like she's getting better, but there's sort of this sad sigh of truth (of things as they actually are) at the end.

And that's why this story is so well-written. To the well-organized mind, this is a beautiful deterioration AND triumph of the psyche.



Now I realize I can't convince people to like this book, but I've read MANY horrible books that were teen or those "grown up" books I was either forced to read or wanted to read myself--so I feel like I know a well-written book as much as the next bibliophile. That is my two cents (not that you can trust it, of course).

[Nia Forrester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, now I get it. I totally understand some of the bad reviews. I just happen to disagree. This book was very challenging. It defies labels. I don't know, even after reading it, whether it's a family drama, mystery, or fantasy-paranormal book. And that for me, makes it a little genius.

The 'Liar' for whom the book is named, is Micah, a seventeen year old girl(maybe) who looks a lot like a boy. So much so, that when mistaken for a boy she pretended to be one until she was discovered. But Micah has a MUCH bigger secret. Several in fact. One such secret, around which much of the mystery of this book is centered, is that she was involved with Zach, one of the popular boys in her school and he goes missing, then is later found dead. Micah may or may not have been involved; she tells different stories throughout but the problem is, you never know which to believe because she really is a liar, and one of epic proportions. And her biggest secret, may be one worth keeping -- believe me, you'll understand why she doesn't tell -- or it may just be another lie.

Is Micah simply a mixed up, gender-confused teenager, or is she something far more ... different? It's tough to say just about ANYTHING about the plot, so I will say this. Micah is the most unreliable of unreliable narrators, and as the plot reveals itself, your frustration with her grows, much as it would if you knew someone in your life like her, who simply cannot seem to tell the truth.

I get people's dissatisfaction, because there was no pat ending to this one. In fact, there's no real resolution ... and that can be unsettling, but I loved it. And even getting to that unresolved ending was a pretty good ride, with a healthy dose of teen romance, high school politics, class and race issues, parental and familial shortcomings ... it was just chock full of issues as well as plot.

I usually end my five-star reviews with a recommendation, but I have to say, this book is definitely not for everyone. That you would want to toss your e-reader across the room while uttering a loud expletive is as likely an outcome from reading it, as the sheer delight I felt. So ... do what you will. But I definitely enjoyed this one.

[Doug Beatty · Rating 1 out of 5]

I cannot believe the number of four and five star reviews for this book! It is horrible! And I am only halfway through it. If you read the dust jacket and look at the cover, you will not get what the book seems to promise.

I assumed (and wrongly I might add) that the book was realistic fiction about a teen girl who either witnesses a murder, or knows something about a murder and because she is a liar, no one believes her.

The book does have a murder (or does it? They mention the fact here and there, and then wander away from that plotline like it is unimportant.) Unfortunately, when you think you are reading a book about a murder, you are curious to know about the murder, and not the family history of the main character who seems to keep going off on tangents (and uniteresting tangents.)

Then the writer seems to have run out of ideas and lost track of where the book was heading so she then decides to take the book in a new direction that is totally ridiculous. It is so bad, it is almost funny and makes the book an unitentional comedy. I don't want to tell the twist because that would be a spoiler, but as I mentioned before, the person that reads the dust jacket and expects one thing will be quite suprised, and not pleasantly so.

Unfortunately, I don't like Micah very much as a main character. She just is rather bland and uninteresting and then the book keeps trying to convince you that she is a liar, and even now she is lying. But if you have a character like this, you end up just not caring. I sort of have a "yeah, whatever" feeling towards here, and that is never good in a protagonist.

I think this book is utterly forgettable, and eventually will end up on the discount racks, forgotten.

I'm just saing.

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liar can be an absorbing and challenging puzzle of a book to read, rewarding almost as much as it keeps you in the dark. Or it can be annoying. Luckily, I was in the right mood to enjoy the puzzle.

Micah is our narrator and she is, as she tells us on the first page, a liar. But she'll tell us the truth. And the truth is that she didn't kill her Zach, her secret sort-of boyfriend. (Or did she?) Partway through the book, she "comes clean" again, telling us her true family secret. (This is where the fantastic elements come in.)

What will either draw in or irritate readers is the complete and total unreliability of Micah as a narrator. She starts the book promising not to lie to us, the readers. She does. How much is true here? How much is a lie? It's completely left up to interpretation. The reader can choose to accept most of what she's said at face value, or none of it. And there are so many, many questions left, so many things that are never resolved or hinted at. That's up to the reader, too.

Of course, even if you do like puzzling, unresolved narratives and unreliable narrators, none of this will work if you don't like Micah herself. She's a lot to take, selfish and self-absorbed and often just plain unpleasant. But she can be sympathetic, too. The one thing that she said that I believe, without any doubt, is that she loved Zach. And if anything of what she said about her family history is true, then I understand her being prickly, and compulsive liar.

The bottom line is that I really enjoyed reading Liar. Could hardly put it down, in fact. And I really do appreciate an ending that is left partially unresolved.

[laaaaames · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to down my starrage because the more I think about this book, the less I like it.

I'm sorry; I don't think it comes together. I get that it's not SUPPOSED to but I don't think that's fair. I really like Justine Larbalestier's other work, but her defense of this one reads a little "I wasn't GOING for elegant, Heidi!" to me. Sure, it doesn't come together, it wasn't supposed to! But even if we doubted what happened, couldn't there be... more?

Also I feel because there was SO little we could trust within the narrative (Micah looks like a boy, Zach is dead, Micah lies... that covers it, right?) that ultimately I just couldn't get invested enough.

Also I won't spoil it but I am kind of annoyed with just how protective Larbalestier is about the BIG SPOILER. It's one thing to say getting spoiled will ruin your enjoyment of a book. To me this seems more like an admission that the book doesn't hold up if you know what it's actually about. And I love when writers get involved but I also don't love when they're running around the perimeter controlling how you're looking in.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review for this book can be found on my blog, the lowercase gimmick.

[Describiendo Mundos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pronto les haré la reseña de este libro tan peculiar.

[Athira (Reading on a Rainy Day) · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is very rarely that I choose to read a book without knowing anything at all about it. Since I don't get much reading time per month, I like to have some idea of the books I read and also whether they have been well-received. Liar was an exception. I had no idea what this book was about, except that the protagonist, Micah, who is also the narrator, is a liar. Funnily, that is all you need to know. Anything else is a spoiler.

I've written a spoiler-free review, and I recommend that if you haven't read this book, please do not read any reviews with spoilers. This story has to be read without knowing anything about it.

My opinion
Liar starts with a confession by Micah that she is a liar, followed by a promise that she will come clean in this story. So she does. Or does she? Her boyfriend, Zack, is dead, and she is shattered. But who killed him? Is she really his girlfriend? Is she even telling the truth? At one point, I almost expected her to shriek and say "April fool! Zack isn't dead!" OR "Gotcha! I invented Zack! The End!"

As Micah backtracks and changes her story, while also explaining her actions, I admit I felt pretty shocked! Some of the things I thought were lies, weren't. And some confessions that I fell for (which was a lot), were false. The major twist halfway through the story quite shocked me, since I didn't expect it at all. I won't say I entirely bought that twist then, but it fell into place as the story progressed.

Remember the story of the Blind men and an elephant? Each of the men touch one part of the elephant, and try to determine what it is. Their guesses are very different (rope, pillar, wall, etc). The story tries to show that two people could look at the same thing and yet, come up with very different conclusions. Liar is an excellent testimony to that, as the reader initially falls for Micah's lies and then when she says the truth, we accept that as being plausible as well!

Although this is a YA book, this is also what I would call YA-for-adults. I didn't cringe at any scene or dialogue, nor did I find any character to be straight out of a lame high school story. The major characters are pretty strong - Micah, Zack, Sarah, even Brandon, though I felt the minor characters to be insubstantial.

Unless you read audio books pretty fast, and don't mind shrilly* narrators, I would suggest you read the book. I wish I did, it might have made me appreciate it better. The narration in the first half of the story was very high-school-ish. Shrilly. Vociferous. Crying girls. Bullying jocks. But the latter part was very serene in pace. It could be because Micah started to grow on me by then, but the effect is very noticeable.

* (The narrator isn't really shrilly, but there are times, I thought my ears will explode. Especially when Micah is extra emotional or angry, or just plain upset.)

Overall, I will recommend this book. I wasn't sure if this idea of a liar as a narrator would work at all. But I would say it did. The concept is very unique, and I found myself eager to know how truthful Micah was in the end. I wasn't wow'ed by this book, but I think the audio book had more to do with that. However, I wasn't very impressed by the ending, and Liar left me with a few questions and some confusing conclusions about what the truths and the lies were.

Title Demystified
No surprise! Micah - the liar! Or not?

Cover Art Demystified
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I love this cover! I am so glad Bloomsbury caved in and changed the cover. The previous one isn't bad but it doesn't fully well capture the heritage of the protagonist AND the "I'm a liar" look in her eyes. Everything about Micah in this picture screams that fact. Her desire to stop lying is mirrored by her hands covering her mouth, but it is conflicted by her tendency to lie, as expressed by her piercing eyes .