This book was really weird and confusing to me. I did finish it but I wish I’d DNFed it when I considered it 5 chapters in. Even when the plot got a little bit exciting towards the end I still wasn’t enjoying it. A waste of time in my opinion

First of all, wow clever cover. We see what you did there.
Second of all, wow what a great book! I love a good mystery! This one was light and fun, but also brought to light a lot of important issues about the online presence of teenagers in today's world.

A fascinating and thrilling mystery that starts with a missing girl and the unexpected outsider receiving a message from her. The story kept me on the edge of my seat. I cannot wait to get this book in the hands of students.

I was very interested in reading this book, but it didn't have me on the edge of my seat as I thought it would. The characters weren't well developed. I feel like I only got to know them on a surface level, including the main character.

I loved this book! The full review will be posted soon at kaitgoodwin.com/books! Thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity to connect books to their readers!

*Thanks to NetGalley and KelpiesTeen for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.* Whilst I am a little old to be the intended audience for this book, I must confess that I devoured it in a day. It is a YA thriller, in the tradition of Pretty Little Liars. I can see it appealing to teenage girls who have also enjoyed the PLL books. The novel starts with the disappearance of Scottish teenager, Judith Tremayne and the twists and turns grow from there. I also enjoyed reading the Scottish turns of phrase that peppered the book and have now learnt that 'dreich' is Scottish for dreary! Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable book.

The story begins with a mystery. A girl is missing. Abbie sets a plan into place to get Judith to come home. Her school starts to see her as a hero, but than everything goes sour. The lies begin. This story is about a high school where there is the crowd everyone wants to hang with. These are the popular girls. Abbie is not in this crowd until Judith disappears. Life turned around for Abbie, but than came crashing down. Backstabbing, cruelty, and deceit all are in this novel. Abbie is very confused. Where did she go wrong? Why is she being blamed as the bad guy? You must pick this up to find out.

Thank you for the opportunity to read 'Between the Lies'. This is a good, teen novel and while the story may seem far-fetched, I can see how an idea between two teens could get blown out of proportion and become out of control. The author has tapped into the way teens use social media to influence each other and the way cliques form/dissolve/reform so easily in this age group.

I will be recommending this to my teenage students.

This book just would not appeal to my middle grade audience. I would possibly consider it if I were at a different level library.

Good YA novel about mean girls and manipulation. It is more than a bit unrealistic, but it has a satisfying conclusion.

MacPhail, Cathy Between the Lies, 280 pages. Kelpies Teen, 2017. $10. Language: PG (4 swears, 0 ‘f’); Mature Content: G; Violence: PG (some danger)

When Jude, fourteen, disappears from school, for some reason it Abbie, the school loner, whom she texts for support. But when Jude doesn’t return during the city-wide candlelight vigil, it all comes out that Jude and Abbie planned the whole thing as payback to Jude’s former best friend, Andrea, who dumped Jude just days earlier. Now Abbie looks like an idiot and now everyone trusts her less than before. Even worse - someone is out to actively make Abbie’s life miserable, whether it’s veiled threats. or making her look more like a fool, or even framing her for something bad that happened to another student. Abbie needs to figure out who this UNKNOWN is, or her life may really be in danger.

I have read a couple of MacPhail’s earlier works; she writes a very taut, nerve-wracking thriller. I avoid horror movies like the plague, so even reading well-crafted horror books gives me the willies. And MacPhail can do that in spades.

MS - ADVISABLE. Cindy, Library Teacher

Giving this book 4 stars for exactly what it is: a suspenseful, YA mystery. I, personally, was not a fan of the characters and found myself losing interest, but that does not mean it wasn't good! It simply wasn't what I wanted in the moment. Well-written, intriguing plot. If you're here for a quick, thrilling read you've found the right story!

I hadn't read any of MacPhail's previous works, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I was intrigued by the blurb and the story kept me engaged until the end. This book wasn't what I anticipated and it through a lot of tricks and twists at me - all of which are too difficult to reference without giving away the plot.
'Between The Lies' was a great, quick read that made some interesting points about society and social media. Definitely worth a read.

Between the Lies totally delivered on the promise of sensational twists. At more than one point in the story, I had no idea what would happen next. I’m kind of a sucker for an unreliable narrator, which Abbie absolutely is. I’m not sure how I’d score her in terms of likeability, though. She’s deeply flawed, but she also knows it for the most part, and there was something soft and vulnerable about her despite her scrambling and lying and keeping people at a distance, and I couldn’t help liking her for that vulnerability.

I kept hoping for a bit of romance or at the least the development of an unexpected friendship. Between the Lies really isn’t that kind of story, though. It’s much more psychological and focused on Abbie unraveling the truth surrounding Jude’s disappearance and the strange harassing text messages she receives.

If you’re into psychological mysteries or unreliable narrators, check out Between the Lies. It’s a super quick read—I think I finished it in about two hours—and will keep you guessing even up to the last few pages. Add it to your list if you liked We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, especially that topsy-turvy storytelling feeling.

Between the Lies

by Cathy MacPhail

Myrick Marketing & Media, LLC

Floris Books



Middle Grade

Pub Date 01 Sep 2017

I am reviewing a copy of Between the Lies through Myrick Marketing &Media LLC and Netgalley:

Judith Tremayne is missing she hasn't been online, or heard from anywhere. It's as if she has vanished. Some have claimed to have seen her on a train to London, on a mega bus and some have gone as far to say she joined Isis and is headed to Syria.

But after a week she has not come back, and her parents are worried. A classmate gets a message from her saying she wants to go home. Suddenly everyone knows Abbie's name. Everyone is obsessed with Judith's dissapearance.

Why is Jude messaging her?

This book deals with issues of bullying, including cyber-bullying.

Andrea eventually leaves the school, shamed.

I give Between the Lies five out of five stars.

Happy Reading!

This isn't the first book of this sort that I've seen and it isn't likely to be the last. I was a little surprised at first by the tone. Its sort of breezy, not exactly emotionally connected to the saga of this missing girl. Sure, Abbie isn't really friends with Judith, but for all her involvement one would expect her to feel something. The twist, her involvement, makes that disconnect make more sense. That point made the book far more compelling. At first. The mystery of her harassment made for compelling reading for a little bit. The problem is she jumps between suspects with little to no evidence, sometimes starting a paragraph convinced of one person's guilt and ending it convinced of another. It's all over the place.

Between the Lies is an honest, heartbreaking look at the complicated relationship that teens have with technology, with social media, with truth and with their friends. In Between the Lies, popular Judith Tremayne is missing. No one has heard from her, she hasn't posted on social media and her friends and family are in a panic. Then, social outcast and loner, Abby Knox receives a text from Judith saying that she wants to come home and the storm begins. As rumors swirl and the concern for Judith intensifies, the book takes a hard look at actions and reactions and about what it means to tell a lie and what consequences are created. Author Cathy MacPhail does a great job of accurately presenting the challenges that face teens today - both in person and online - and asking the tough questions about who to blame when things don't happen they way we expect them to. Between the Lies is also a story about friendship, about being true to ourselves, about trust and about second chances.

This book had a little bit of everything. It was a good lesson but it was also quite scary. I would not give this to anyone under the age of high school at the earliest because of this.

The story follows Abbie as she deals with the consequences of her actions. Overall, it ends up working out for her but not without plenty of hurt and confusion.

4 stars for this brisk thriller for teenagers.

Judith Tremayne, a 14-year-old girl from Port Glasgow in Scotland, has gone missing. The consequences of this are explored through the viewpoint of classmate Abbie Knox. This novel explores bullying, the power and hold of social media, family relationships, school life and the media, all without slowing down the thrilling plot of twists and turns. There are shocking revelations, moving scenes and some moments of real creepiness. The story is told in simple language in short, punchy sentences and the writing effectively interweaves newspaper reports, texts and tweets in Abbie's narration. This is a book for teenagers (and older) to devour with real enjoyment - and if they manage to savour the book more slowly there are nice touches, such as the amusingly authentic social media names, to appreciate.

I received this ebook free from NetGalley and the publisher Floris Books.

For the most part I think this is one of those books kids in middle school and high school really need to read because there are very important themes that in the story lines that are so prevalent in their culture today. Younger generations are increasingly dealing with bullying in both reality and on cyber levels, are drawn to the need to become famous and don’t seem to consider the long term consequences of their choices; then again that last one could just be a general condition of the human race.

MacPhail opens the story by dropping you right in the middle of the action thankfully though it doesn’t take long to catch up or understand how these characters are involved with the story as her talented writing answers all the major questions up front. I have to admit at first I was getting pretty bored because the characters seemed bored and completely apathetic that their friend was missing. She definitely captures teenage attitudes correctly which for good or bad was rubbing off on me as the reader. I hung in there and I was glad I did because then some INSANE twists start getting dropped; everything you thought you knew about this story gets upended.

Mixing texts and social media posts with the story added an interesting depth which I felt captured the spirit of the characters involved along with the intended audience. Once I got past the opening and hit the first big “what the hell” moment the story just flew by at this incredibly quick pace. When the story finally began winding down towards its conclusion I never saw this ending coming but as the pieces fell into place it made so much sense and felt like the perfect way to go.

The ONLY complaint I had was one line of narrative where the main character remarks “Over the next couple of days I grew to understand why teenagers commit suicide.” The character was undergoing some severe bullying and this was her feeling in relation to that. Then later the character says she stopped thinking seriously about suicide because she couldn’t die without finding out what a person’s motivation was for a particular action. I don’t want to get too specific and ruin one of the big twists. Something about the attitude towards suicide really bothered me, it felt a little flippant and with suicide such a HUGE issue with teens I felt like this could have been handled better. Granted it’s a teenager talking instead of an adult so you can’t expect a teen to have some profound viewpoint on this. The taboo subject is only quickly mentioned and forgotten in these 2 instances so I felt like it would have been better to say nothing and the author could have deleted these lines or altered how the character was trying to explain their feelings without harming the story.

The subject of suicide has directly affected my family so I admit to being very sensitive to the subject making it my personal viewpoint whereas others may read those parts and have a completely different reaction if any.

Overall I felt it was an intriguing book, perfect for its intended audience and a good one to get some discussions going. I can see this being used in English classes or teen book clubs. It would be a pretty good idea for parents to read it as well so they could talk with their kids about bullying, its consequences, how to handle it and even how to create a better environment at home where kids can feel comfortable and safe to talk to their parents about anything including how their own behavior is impacting their kids.