Count My Lies is a book where you don’t really like the main character because we know that everything she says is a lie. But at the same time, I cannot look away from the train wreck she creates for herself.

I genuinely was like “yeah I know where this is going” and then I was ✨wrong✨ but more than once.

The narration is perfection too. The way each narrator is able to highly the true mess Sloane, Jay and Violet bring the story is pure perfection.

I hate liars and I start each year in my classroom expressing that sentiment, so I was a little leery to read a book about pathological lying. And yet, I enjoyed it. I found it to be twisty, and it was a quick weekend read. Thank you netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

What happens when a pathological liar meets and psychopath!? This was a decent story, but not terribly original and somewhat predictable. I did appreciate the differing POV's. This is definitely a fun beach read that you will fly through.

This book started a little bit slow, but once the story took off it kept me guessing. I found the women interesting and could not wait to see how it ended. I appreciate and author who ties up all of the loose ends and Stava did that here. This is a great read.

This book just missed the mark. The start of the book from Sloan's perspective got the story off to an interesting start. Once the perspective changed to the other two main characters, the story fell apart for me. The ending was almost too contrived to follow..

4 stars

Have I read this story before? Yes but I still enjoyed it. I've read other books that have very similar themes and set up but I still enjoyed following someone who is a pathological liar and I think the twist was still good enough to recommend.

Also I think the first 60 seconds of the audiobook kind of "spoiled" something you don't find out until the very end.

Count My Lies was a solid read but felt a little lacking. It kept my interest enough that I finished it quickly, but there were times I was just waiting for something to happen. The twist was interesting and a little unbelievable and the rest of the story continued that way to the end. I had a hard time with the characters not being likeable--this made me not as invested in the book.

Count My Lies by Sophia Stava is a quick twisty read that was a mashup of Freida McFadden and The Last Mrs. Parrish. If you enjoy those two then you will have fun with this one. It’s a little wordy and takes some time to develop the “twist” and I had to skim read the middle part of the book. At times the story line is forced but if you stay with it the ending is tidy and satisfying. This is my first book buy this author. Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced readers copy!

Count my lies is a great thriller. It leaves you guessing with the twists and turns. The ending was a surprise and I loved it! I highly recommend this book!

3.5 stars, rounded up

Sloane Caraway is a compulsive liar. She'll come up with a lie to fit any situation or to make any circumstance turn out the way she wants it to. In order to keep track of her lies, she'll count them.

1. My name is Kaitlyn
2. I am a nurse
and so on and so on

When she sees a young girl get stung by a bee at a local park, she runs to help (after seeing the hot dad get flustered). Seeing as she's dressed in scrubs from her day spa job, Jay assumes she's a nurse and Sloane doesn't correct him. After bumping into the family a couple of times, Sloane works her way into their lives as nanny for the young daughter...keeping track of her own lies, but not realizing this family might not have been telling her the whole truth as well.

If you've read any reviews of this book, you may have seen it compared to Gone Girl. Many domestic thrillers since Gone Girl was published have been compared to that one and I fall for it every time, only to be disappointed that they don't live up to the hype. Well, this one hit the mark. Even though you know it's similar, it doesn't copy that one. It pulls you in with mutliple parts, multiple narrators, and many many secrets and lies. I thought the first half was a bit better than the second, but the ending was great. I may have been able to work it out, but it didn't take away from the twists and turns that Sophie Stava lead us on.

This was a really quick and easy read, one that you TRULY won't want to put down. The characters were crazy, deliciously unlikeable, but make the reader interested in what they'll do next. I also did the audiobook and the narration was great, with three voice actors for the three main characters. If you enjoy listening, I highly recommend.

I can hope that Sophie Stava's next novel will be as fun as this one! I'm definitely going to keep my eyes open for another by her.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I really loved this one. In fact, while I was waiting to get approved on NetGalley, I ended up buying it and I'm glad I did. This is a fantastic thriller for a variety of reasons. One, the FMC is so well drawn she feels real. Like someone you could know, or have met, but kind of wish you didn't. Then, the ending was very female empowering. Loved it. I also appreciated that it didn't get too dark. I have a hard time with thrillers that verge on horror (just not my preference) and this one doesn't do that. I was able to stay in the story for the entire time. Highly recommend if you're looking for a page turner, and definitely read it before it comes out as a show on Netflix - very exciting!

Typical thriller for me. Doesnt stand out. I did appreciate the “unknowning” of whats real and whats not. Reminds me of Sometimes I Lie. Lacking in depth for me

This is apparently a GMA Book Club pick, and I can see why. It has a vague Gone-Girl-esque feel to it; not so much in specific plot points but in a vibe and the way that the book is divided into different POVs.

Sloane Caraway, as noted in the blurb, lies. A lot. I didn’t think that would bother me, but I was wrong. The impulsive (and honestly compulsive) nature of Sloane’s lies ended up making me anxious. I understood that her life was boring and drab and she felt compelled to make it somehow seem more interesting, but it was like watching someone walking a tightrope over a deep canyon.

As Sloane’s backstory is revealed, it becomes clear that she’s repeating history with Jay and Violet; her previous situation ended in a restraining order against Sloane. I became frustrated with her, or perhaps more specifically by her repeated insistence that this situation was different. I don’t do well with delusional people. Also, a note on her lying: in my limited experience with compulsive liars, I will say that people absolutely know that you’re lying. Which adds a whole extra layer of cringe to the situation.

So, Sloane falls into the nannying job for Jay and Violet and is able to quit her manicurist job (she’d previously had a position at a Montessori preschool, but that ended in a spectacular flameout). She is first drawn to Jay, who seems like the perfect man – breathtakingly handsome, rich, an attentive husband and father. But when she starts working for Violet and Jay, she doesn’t see much of him (he works a lot), and so she is instead drawn (more platonically) to the charming and also-seemingly-perfect-but-somehow-more-accessible Violet. Violet and Sloane (oh, wait, she’s told them her name is Caitlin, an impulsive lie that seems dumb at the time but does end up making her harder to trace) become friends – it seems like Sloane Caitlin spends more time with Violet than with her adorable daughter Harper.

I can’t talk about the second half of the book without revealing huge spoilers. When the POV changed I actually liked it because it was nice to get a break from Sloane (I’m just going to call her Sloane rather than Caitlin because that after all is her name, even if she is called Caitlin through much of the book). As mentioned, she made me anxious. And while the facts revealed in the shifted perspective weren’t exactly surprising – the blurb says more than it should, maybe – I was surprised by how much is revealed far before the end. There were still some aspects that weren’t entirely clear, and of course the end has a couple of twists, but again, the structure was very Gone-Girl-esque to me. Which isn’t a bad thing – I can’t be the only current suspense reader for whom GG was a gateway drug.

So far, pretty good. But about those twists at the end – one of them made sense even though I didn’t entirely anticipate it. But the other…

I talk pretty often in my suspense reviews about “batshit” twists and plot points that don’t bear close scrutiny. By and large, I accept such things if the book keeps my attention well enough. This book did, and so I accepted the fact that the machinations of one character, while often clever, also depended on a lot of little things falling their way: people showing up or not showing up when expected to, people acting and reacting in specific ways, etc. That’s all fine. But the actual end of this book featured some elements that were just too far-fetched to be acceptable. Like, my limit was reached. This could not possibly have played out this way in the real world or anything approaching the real world.

And so it kind of…ruined the book for me? Ruined is too strong of a word, but it definitely overshadowed the rest of the story. All I keep thinking about is how unbelievable it was.

I will spoil it for the curious below (warning: spoiler is vague but also not that vague?):

Spoiler: Hide

I don’t care how corrupt a police force is, how much of an alcoholic the coroner is, how much help you have from friends on the inside – it’s just not credible to pretend someone died by murder, to the point where the accused murderer is imprisoned, when you can’t produce a body and there has been no apparent investigation. Like, the absence of a body would be a huge factor. If the defendant has a lawyer – and they would have to – how can someone possibly be convicted when the putative deceased has supposedly been cremated without any examination and you only have the word of one witness to the supposed shooting and one witness who can testify to the death of the supposed victim (a witness who happens to have a previous connection to the victim).
Also, it doesn’t make sense for a character to decide on a dime to team up with the person who just tried to kill them, but that one is more of a “not really human nature” thing, so I can let it go. The other is a “how the real world works” and I can’t, sadly, let it go.

If a book is dumb and has dumb plot twists, I probably judge it less harshly. But Count My Lies wasn’t a dumb book, until the unbelievable ending, and that annoys me.

I’m not sure what to rate this one. It would have been a B+ before the end, and initially I dropped it down to a B, but I think the ending was so stupid I’ll go with a B-. I would still try the author again, though.

Sophie Stava’s Count My Lies is a dazzling debut that had me hooked from the first page. Sloane Caraway, a compulsive liar, lands a nanny job with the seemingly perfect Lockhart family after a small fib. But beneath their polished facade lies a web of secrets more dangerous than her own. The narrative twists and turns, revealing the dark underbelly of privilege and deception. Stava’s sharp prose and complex characters make this a must-read thriller. I also saw it is going to be a show - so excited.

This well done excursion in the unreliable narrator (or is it, since Sloane is up front with readers about her deceptions?) subgenre is particularly effective in challenging readers' expectations and sympathies for the main characters. A strong debut!

I loved this one! It had the best twist since Gone Girl for me. I did guess the ending before I got there, but I still loved it. The story developed in a way that felt engaging and both of the female characters were so well created that they were easy to connect with. I will be recommending this to everyone who loves a twisty story!

Sloane is a liar. Her latest lie, one day in the park that she’s a nurse named Caitlin, ingratiates her into the life of the Lockhart family, parents Violet and Jay and young daughter, Harper. Soon, “Caitlin,” and Violet are the best of friends and she’s nannying full-time for Harper. But Sloane’s hiding more than just her real name and profession. But soon, she begins to suspect that Violet and Jay may be as well…

This book is divided into four parts, each narrated by a different character, making it easy to follow along.

Wow. This book is crazy twisted, in that you really never know what is going to happen next! It’s really best to go in without knowing anything, but it’s safe to say that you never know what’s around the corner in this book. And just when you think you have a handle on things, they switch up on you.

And it’s hard to describe the characters in the book, because while they are all liars and somewhat “bad people,” I can’t say that I hated everyone. No spoilers here, but there’s plenty of nuance to the story as well that the author works in.

Thus is a great mystery that you’ll definitely want to pick up!

Give me a book full of lies where you don't know the truth AT ALL and a quick, fun read. This was it! I couldn't even keep up with all the lies and honesty it makes you question literally thing you read! But this was so fun and felt so crazy and wild.

Thank you Netgalley for the arc! 4 stars!

Count My Lies is billed as fast paced thriller with an unreliable narrator. Both couldn’t be further from the truth. It was slow paced and Sloan was reliably uninteresting and frustrating. There was a bit of drama as the POV changed about 75% through but it was way too late to save the silly plot.

I liked this book and you will too if you are a Frieda McFadden reader. It was warped and twisted. I enjoyed reading it even though this has been done so many times before.