I adore a good teen mystery and this one kept me guessing until the end. Teens who like reading anything by Karen MacManus will love this story too

A dead girl--likely murdered. An all-girls prep school. An all-boys reform school. Students from both schools with secrets to keep. These are the background for a fast-paced murder mystery and thriller where the viewpoints swap between Jenna from the prep school, and Adam, a reform school resident, and with each swap, secrets, and histories come to light, and motives and likely murderers are exposed.

Add in a blossoming romance between Jenna and Adam, and you have all the parts for an enjoyable read. I'd recommend this for any fans of YA mystery thrillers, or for those who are looking for an introduction to the genre.

This is very similiar to One of Us is Lying and I think that's a good thing and also it's downfall. I loved One of Us is Lying but comparing it to this book didn't feel in the same level. This book was interesting but I wasn't overly curious, it just fell kind of flat. Jenna and Adam were the only characters who seemed okay, I just didn't care about the rest. The ending came out of left field for me too. Maybe I just missed clues. Overall a good book but a little dull. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

I managed to read this one in one sitting. The writing was fast paced and engaging, the characters interesting, and it was incredibly fun to follow along with Jenna as she worked to solve the mystery of who is running around killing high schoolers. At no point did I think I had the ending figured out and it was a nice surprise!

One morning, while Jenna was standing at the harbour taking photos, she found Adam pulling a body from the water. Her friend, Colleen, had drowned but it wasn’t an accident. Jenna’s best friend is the main suspect, but she is certain that her friend didn’t do it. Adam and his friends also had a connection to Colleen. She had threatened him and his friends the night before her body was found. Adam and Jenna bond over this tragedy. Everyone has a motive and everyone is keeping secrets, but the clock is ticking down until they find the murderer.

This was such a fast paced thriller. It had short chapters that flew by quickly. It was really hard to put this book down because there were so many twists.

It’s been a while since a thriller truly surprised me. I couldn’t figure out how this story was going to end and I was really surprised. I liked that there wasn’t any wasted space. Every chapter and scene was important to the plot and it wrapped up quickly at the end.

This is Why Why Lie is an exciting, fast paced thriller!

Thank you Inkyard Press for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What a way for Jenna and Adam to start their separate morning--finding a dead body floating off shore. And what's worse is that the body is of Jenna's classmate, Colleen.

Despite how things appear, it is unclear to Jenna if Adam was involved in Colleen's death. Jenna's best friend Hollie, however, has somehow become suspect number one after a video of an argument between Hollie and Colleen is shared. With loyalty to the best friend she knew wouldn't hurt someone, Jenna launches her own investigation and we learn just how much she didn't know was going on right under her nose.

Who doesn't enjoy a form school for boys being just a hop, skip and a jump away from a girl's preparatory school?! It's almost always cause for a good time. 3.5 stars rounded to 4.

I always love a good YA mystery! This was a fun read and one that I will gift to my teen daughter during the holidays. Thank you for my Net Galley copy!

It was an early morning taking pictures at the beach for Jenna when a cry for help shattered the peace and quiet. Adam, a student at nearby Rookwood School, is seen attempting to rescue a body from the river. Jenna's all-girls prep school classmate Colleen's body has been discovered.

It’s not long after Colleen’s body is found that accusations fly and Jenna’s best friend winds up in the hot seat. Jenna believes her friend is innocent, but will the cops, including her aunt, trust her? Jenna is determined to do a little investigation of her own.

Meanwhile, Adam worries that suspicion will turn to him and his friends. They're used to being blamed for things as students at what is essentially a last-chance school for troublemakers. But whether or not one of them is guilty, they’re determined to protect one another and keep their secrets protected as well.
No one knows what to think when people start acting differently, and when another incident occurs, Jenna is more determined than ever to figure out the truth. However, as she and Adam become closer, she begins to wonder if her emotions are blinding her to the true offender.

One of the biggest reasons why I requested this book was because it reminded me of One of Us in Lying.
Its a back and forth sotry that goes from the past to the present and versa. This kept me so engaged and wanting to find out what was going to happen next.

Excellent read! Thank you so much to #netgalley for the arc.

I thought this was a good book with twist and turns. It was definitely a good mystery!! There were times when I felt disconnected from characters when I felt like they could have been crafted a bit better. But a good book overall

Why do we lie? To keep a secret a secret or what? Jenna is sitting on the promenade by the ocean. It’s early — only the fishermen our out and the pelicans. She suddenly hears cries for help. It’s a boy, Adam from Rockwood. Jenna sees the body he rescued from the ocean. She is dead. Adam tells her to call for help but Jenna knows she is dead. Gardeners Bay’s community is upset. The dead girl was drowned on purpose. As the police investigate, one of Jenna’s friend becomes a suspect in her murder. As she tries to investigate at school PrestonPrep, she finds out scandals of Preston Prep that lead back Rockwood Reform School. Adam is attending that school. Adam discovers his friends are being suspected of the murder . He decides he needs to investigate to find who the murderer is because it can’t be his friends. Will Jenna and Adam work together to find out who did it?

This is a young adult mystery thriller. It is told from two points of view — Jenna’s and Adam.’s. I liked the two of them looking for answers to “find who did it.” I would had liked a bit more drama in the story but overall it’s a good read. I wanted to know who did it and why. I found out.

I would like to thank Publisher and Net Galley, This book opens up with a jaw dropping event poor Colleen's as I'm reading this book the twist and turns had me on my heels. My favorites Characters were Jenna and Adam because of how their parents Jenna moms is so much about her career and Adam dad no communication Adam feels he blame him for what happen to his Mother. I did not care for Max at all that whole Serena thing was shady. The Author knew when and how to drop Secrets especially Tommy Secrets I didn't see that one coming. This was a excellent really enjoy the escape look forward to reading more from this Author.

**3.5-stars rounded up**

Gardiners Bay is your typical isolated community by the sea. It's full of secrets, lies, deceptions and murder!
Partly kidding, but you can picture the scene. In Gardiners Bay, there are two different schools that play an enormous role in this drama. Preston Prep School for girls and Rookwood Reform School for boys.

On a quiet morning in the Bay, Jenna Dallas is out taking scenic photos when shouts for help from the beach draw her attention. She finds Adam Cole, a Rookwood boy, pulling a lifeless Colleen O'Dell from the surf. Colleen is a popular Preston Prep girl and Jenna is shocked to see the state of her classmate. Pulling herself together, Jenna is able to call 9-1-1 and emergency services soon arrive.

Unfortunately, Colleen doesn't survive and both Jenna and Adam are brought in for questioning. To the teens, the whole situation seems cut and dry. Adam noticed Colleen's body floating and pulled her from the surf, Jenna came upon them both and called for help. For the police however, it's not that simple. Colleen's death was no accident and a full-blown investigation begins.

After numerous Preston Prep girls report a viscious verbal altercation happening between Colleen and Jenna's best friend, Hollie, just hours before Colleen's death, the police begin to consider Hollie a prime suspect. Jenna knows Hollie is innocent. There's no way she would have physically harmed Colleen. In order to help her friend, Jenna begins an investigation of her own.

Her investigation has her digging through all the dirt of not only her own school, but also Rookwood. Thus, she ends up growing closer to the mysterious, Adam. A fact she's not complaining about.

Y'all, I thought this book was a ton of fun. The narrative alternates between Jenna and Adam, as well as including flashbacks for both characters and some really engaging mixed media aspects. I felt this format kept the story moving forward at a nice steady pace throughout. Great choice by Lepore.

I love an amateur sleuth trope, so it wasn't necessarily surprising that I enjoyed this. I am also a huge fan of over-the-top drama. Hidden secrets and dirty laundry coming to light, I can't resist it. This story somehow brought the same level of drama as every season of The O.C., Beverly Hills 90210 and Pretty Little Liars combined! That's a real feat.

There were plenty of twists, turns, red herrings and reveals. I suspected everyone at one point or another. In the end, Lepore wrapped it up nicely and I was quite satisfied with it overall. It reads extremely quickly. Once you get into, it's hard to peel your eyes away from the trainwreck!

If you are a fan of YA Thrillers such as This Is Our Story, People Like Us or The Cheerleaders, you should definitely give this one a shot!

Thank you so much to the publisher, Inkyard Press, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I look forward to reading more from Gabriella Lepore!

This is Why We Lie by Gabriella Lepore starts out right away with the discovery of a body. Adam Cole, a resident at the Rockwood Reform School comes walking out of the bay with the body of a young woman from the Preston Prep School. He's not alone either, as Jenna Dallas, another Preston student witnesses it all.

When Jenna returns to Preston, she finds out that one of her friends is a suspect in the death causing Jenna and Adam to start some investigating on their own. There's twists, turns, secrets and lies -- exactly what you would expect from a story like this one.

Gabriella Lepore is a new-to-me author, but I'm a sucker for a good prep school/reform school tale, and this one seemed like exactly what I was looking for. It did seem a bit odd that these these two schools would be in the same community, but it made for an interesting bad-boys/good-girls tale.

As a mystery/thriller, this worked okay for me. A bit more suspense could have been applied for my taste, but it didn't stop me from being engaged in the story. The dual POVs worked for well for presenting the story, but some of the flashbacks could have been smoother for this reader.

Overall, this mystery kept me guessing and kept me reading. And that's why I'm giving this four stars.

I’m normally not a huge fan of school dramas, which is odd considering how often I read these types of books, but this one was done really well!

Jenna and Adam were great main characters. Every character was unreliable and untrustworthy but these two in particular held my attention since we alternated between their POVs. They had the typical good girl and bad boy type of chemistry at the start but it quickly grew more complicated as the cast of characters grew along with Gardiners Bay’s body count. Though there was a large cast of characters by the end of the book it was very easy to keep everyone straight.

The plot was exciting and more fast-paced than I thought it would be based on the summary alone. The amount of suspicion the characters held for each other and that I held for every character contributed to that but the alternating POVs, the various romantic entanglements, the secrets, and the writing style all played roles as well. Every element of the book worked together to build what felt like a shaky house of cards just a breath away from crumbling. That feeling had me turning the pages quickly and I ended up finishing the book in about a day.

As I mentioned earlier, despite my habit of reading them I’m really not a huge fan of books that take place solely in high school and involve high school drama. I stayed out of it in high school and I don’t love reading about it after high school. This book pulls it off remarkably well, however, and I think it has to do with the combination of rich-girl prep school and bad-boy reform school. The characters had variety and depth beyond just being pretentious, which is usually what turns me off prep school mysteries. The Rooks each had an interesting backstory and different outlooks on life because of them. The girls at Preston Prep were a little more stereotypical but still amped up the intrigue with their different relationships and hierarchies. The secrets within the two groups and between the two groups wove a really sound mystery.

I loved the backdrop of Gardiners Bay for this book. The beach, the small town vibes, the Rooks’ cabin in the woods, and the idyllic Preston Prep provided a good amount of variety between scenes. It’s just hard to go wrong with a good small-town mystery, you know?

I would definitely recommend giving this a read. It’s brimming with secrets and backstabbing, has a large but manageable case of characters to keep your suspicions high, and the fast-paced plot will have you turning the pages all day long. The only thing I wish there had been more of was foreshadowing to the final whodunnit reveal, but even without that it was a very enjoyable read.

Told from the point of view of two characters with similar backgrounds. The story was great, but there was a lack of character development. I also wish the ending didn't feel as rushed.

This one had me on the edge of my seat.

I liked the complexity of the characters. There wasn’t really anyone who was all good or all bad. Everyone had layers and made choices for reasons that, even if I didn’t agree with them, I understood what they were thinking or what motivated them to do those things. Adam especially had a lot of conflicting feelings and guilt, and it was obvious that he wanted to be a good person but struggled to believe his past hadn’t already decided what kind of person he was.

There were a few frustrating moments where Jenna would do things that seemed naïve, but I think that fit her character. She wanted to believe the best in everyone, from her best friend whose explosive argument with the girl later found murdered put her in the center of the police investigation to her absent mom. So even though I was ready to shout at the book because I didn’t want her to do something, her choices made sense, and her optimism and compassion often led to things in the story being revealed. I liked that it had more of an impact than just potentially placing her in danger.

I think fans of ONE OF US IS LYING by Karen McManus or PRETTY LITTLE LIARS by Sara Shepard will love THIS IS WHY WE LIE.

I really wanted to love this book because of the premise but it fell a little short for me. It had a good mystery but the way the flashbacks were written didn't flow the way I was hoping they would. Overall, I wanted more from the romance and I didn't feel the connection I was hoping to feel. This will be a book my students will pick up and read. Thank you netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you to the publisher, Inkyard Press, for providing me with an ARC of This Is Why We Lie in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Gist
This Is Why We Lie started out very promising. Late summer early fall setting, a town by the Pacific; perfect setting for a mood-driven murder to unfold.

Well, unfortunately, it didn’t quite hit the mark for me. Let me explain.

The Details
We jump right in. Someone has been murdered and her body is found. This happens on page one.

No big secret. Ok, so let’s follow the protagonists as they figure out who killed the high school student.

Seems pretty straight forward and sure to guarantee a page-turning reading experience. But instead, we are left with a lot of half-finished flashbacks that do not answer any questions or provide enough information to keep my interest, at least.

It started to really grate on my nerves that a lot of the chapters were mostly flashbacks that teasingly hinted at some form of coherent story.

I didn’t quite understand why most of the important scenes were told in flashback form. It created unnecessary distance between the reader and the story. I mean, we were thrown right into the middle of it with the discovery of the body. Why not hold on to the reader’s attention by formatting those flashbacks into whole chapters that are dedicated to the past?

In between those unfinished flashbacks and incomplete scenes set in the present there are chapters dedicated to police transcripts and text message exchanges. They felt disjointed and pulled me out of the story, which I tried hard to get into.

Because of the incomplete storytelling format, both protagonists came across as sketchy and not very interesting. I stopped caring. And I got a little frustrated with all the suspicious, shifty side glances and secret keeping.

I wanted to shout out “Just spit it out already!!”

Needless to say, the structure and choice of narrative wasn’t for me.

The Verdict
Overall, This Is Why We Lie was a bit of a letdown. I had hoped for more and maybe that’s because I wasn’t in the right mood or headspace for this story.

I would probably suggest it.

Disclaimer: I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: This is Why We Lie

Author: Gabriella Lepore

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 3/5

Recommended For...: young adult readers, thriller, mystery, dark academia

Publication Date: September 21, 2021

Genre: YA Thriller

Recommended Age: 15+ (murder, violence, gore, drug use, kidnapping, language)

Explanation of CWs: Murder, slight violence, and slight gore are throughout the book. There is drug use mentioned and shown. There is one kidnapping scene. And there’s some language in the book.

Publisher: Inkyard Press

Pages: 320

Synopsis: When Jenna Dallas and Adam Cole find Colleen O'Dell's body floating off the shore of their coastal town, the community of Gardiners Bay is shaken. But even more shocking is the fact that her drowning was no accident.

Once Jenna's best friend becomes a key suspect, Jenna starts to look for answers on her own. As she uncovers scandals inside Preston Prep School leading back to Rookwood reform school, she knows she needs Adam on her side.

As a student at Rookwood, Adam is used to getting judgmental looks, but now his friends are being investigated by the police. Adam will do whatever he can to keep them safe, even if that means trusting Jenna.

As lies unravel, the truth starts to blur. Only one thing is certain: somebody must take the fall.

Review: For the most part I thought this was fairly well done. The book had good world building and I loved the dark academia vibes. I also liked the plot of the book for the most part.

However, I did feel like the book had a few issues. The characters weren’t well developed and it was hard to connect with them. The pacing was super slow and it was hard to keep reading. The flashbacks were awkwardly placed. And it was predictable in the end. Overall, the book is kinda clunky and needs a bit more work.

Verdict: It was ok.