Seven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate is still a favorite in my classroom with students. Redgate developed the characters well for each of the seven deadly sins. I appreciate the diverse gender/sexuality of characters. This book gets passed around and talked about all the time - students love it!

Sadly, I wasn't a fan of this. I usually enjoy books with dual point of views, because of the different perspectives that it offers, showing other sides to each character / their tale. In this, however, it all just felt overwhelming. This had the impact of making it hard for me to connect to the characters, and to the stories.

I have had this book on my kindle for longer than I should have. Seven ways we lie follows seven students from Paloma High, Kansas. We have Olivia and Kat Scott; twins but so different from one another. Matt Jackson local pot head and plodding through life. Lucas McCallum the local dealer of pot and alcohol. Juniper Kipling the girl who has the perfect life, beauty,popularity, wealth and talent. Claire Lombardi friends with Olivia and juniper but always compares herself to everyone. Valentine Simmons the outcast that hates humanity.
These 7 unlikely characters get entwined in a scandal; someone at Paloma High has been heard to be having a relationship with a teacher!

The concept of this book is great but I just didn't feel connected to any of the characters. At first I was blown away by so many POV's and struggled to get a hold of the dynamics but as the story progressed I got a handle on it. Only one of the characters seem to have a distinct voice and that was juniper just as the way she was written. The chapters are quite short and due to the fact there are so many characters I found it difficult to really relate or connect to them.I don't know why I like reading about teacher-student relationships but I just do. This was done well in my opinion, it didn't romanticise it or go too in-depth.

Overall I rated this 2.5

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

This book about seven teens caught up in the fallout of a teacher/student affair is a great read which tackles lots of important topics without sensationalising them, Juggling a story from 7 POVs seems hugely ambitious but Riley Redgate pulls it off brilliantly in her debut. In addition it has the first character I've seen in a YA novel who defines themselves as pansexual, and a character who strongly reads as aromantic/asexual. (In this case, the character doesn't use these words, but it fits their character NOT to.)

Relationships between students and their teachers are gross, but you’ll find more than a few YA novels about them and one such relationship is at the heart of Seven Ways We Lie. It’s not really a mystery who is involved since the narrative clues are obvious and confirmation comes a third of the way through, but the book isn’t entirely about the relationship. It’s about seven students who have their own lives to live when the relationship’s existence gets out and how they change indirectly or directly because of the events that follow.

With seven first-person points of view, six in prose and one in verse, the story is a little bit busy. However, I didn’t feel lost at any point or lose track of what was going on in whose life. It helps that two of those points of view are used sparingly, leaving us with five primary points of view. Isn’t that a little more manageable? (It helps that the verse POV is the least utilized because those chapters are just plain bad.) All the teens feel like real people and I was particularly soft for Olivia, who’s out getting all the sex she wants, and Lucas, the school drug/booze dealer who wants to get out of town. Lucas is pansexual and his identity is both explicitly stated and thoroughly explained.

I wouldn’t call the novel’s overall representation very good, though. Lucas is outed multiple times against his will and another POV character named Valentine is heavily implied to be asexual. In an interview, Redgate states that he’s aromantic, asexual, and autistic.

As someone who is also aro ace and autistic, I really dislike Valentine’s portrayal. His characterization conforms to a number of ways I’ve been stereotyped as an asexual person and the autistic person being asexual plays into the rampant problem of disabled people being desexualized in fiction even though his–and my–identities are independent of one another. It’s a complex thing and I don’t think Redgate wrote it well.

I’m just so whelmed. When it comes to the queer representation that drew me to Seven Ways We Lie in the first place, I’m especially underwhelmed. Student-teacher relationships are always gross, but if you read this book and are into the complexities Redgate tries to paint the relationship with, you might also enjoy Consent by Nancy Ohlin.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review. Unfortunately I am unable to give you a proper review. I apologize for the inconvenience. I am just no longer interested to read this book. I appreciate the approval.

Fun idea, cutely written and nicely done book.

Sadly for me there was just something missing and a lot of the time i felt as if i already read one of the segments already since they felt so similar to the one already read.

It was still a nice contemporary read overall.

I unfortunately was not able to read this book before the archive date. Someday I hope to read and review it for my blog. I will give a 5 star review on here so that I don't mess with it's rating.

My review: This took me ages to get around to, but once I started I wondered why I had been putting it off. It seems quite fitting that a high school should be the setting for a book about the seven deadly sins, and although you could assign one sin to each of the seven main characters, in fact they were not so one-dimensional. I have totally known a few envious Claires in my time (and been her), so even though she was the worst-behaved character she rang very true. Matt, allegedly the sloth, was actually lovely, and his scenes with his little brother were the best. Olivia was more misunderstood than the “lust” label would indicate, and I loved the way she owned her sexuality.

The parents in this are generally absent, which annoys me as a parent myself. I expected Juniper’s to put their foot down, but what happened with them surprised me. I must add that a teacher at my high school married a senior after she graduated, not long before I started there, so I can understand how a young teacher must find it difficult when they are not much older than their students. The way the teacher and student met in this story made it not seem creepy, which I appreciated.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and found it hard to put down once I’d started. I’m looking forward to reading Redgate’s subsequent work.

***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***

My rating: 4/5

It's hard to find a high school story where the characters read true to form. This one does it very well. The author's descriptions of the cliques are spot on. So accurate, in fact, that I found myself picturing myself back in high school. A solid read for me at four stars.

SEVEN WAYS WE LIE had a lot of potential. The synopsis? Absolutely fantastic and easily draws you in. But despite the amazing idea, the execution was a bit... less than satisfactory. I loved the diversity in both characters and their voices, but there were a few of things that made it hard for me to like the book. For example, the slut-shaming, underdeveloped characters, and no real substance to the diverse aspects of the characters.
Overall, the book was okay! It definitely could have been better, but it definitely did a few things right.

I have had this as an arc for about a year, thanks to netgalley, but I would constantly push it back. I now realize how dumb of a decision that was. This surprised the hell out of me in terms of the range of issues and characters it covered.



In my opinion these stories seemed to revolve around Olivia and Juniper, and to some degree Claire. I felt that Kat, Matt, Lucas, and Valentine were almost secondary but they added so much more to the main players. They were diverse and had problems I could understand.



Okay, main plot point is that there are rumors of a student-teacher affair going on in this high school. It is quickly laughed off by many students except for one of our characters who was the anonymous source of this information! I don’t want to spoil anything but I got to get some things out so…



POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERTS!!



.

FUCK YOU CLAIRE! SERIOUSLY!

She didn’t get nearly as much punishment as she should have. You could have ruined lives had the situation not turned, you judgey ass. I understand her self-esteem issues but omfg.

Valentine and Lucas. I just adore Lucas so much and YAY to a pansexual jock character who isn’t an asshole. Valentine grew on me and I didn’t expect that outcome for them, also whoa did I get this character wrong.





Okay DONE.



Sexuality is a HUGE character in this book. Probably the most important as well. These characters are dealing with issues that are creating turning points in their lives for better and worse.



Olivia is so misunderstood but then you have Matt who is so opposite and yet they click so well.

These characters coming together almost felt like a version of The Breakfast Club.

Really fantastic debut.

The finest contemporaries are realistic and Seven Ways We Lie was just that. Set in a high school in a small town, this novel is a very realistic exploration of the teenage mind and the issues that high schoolers deal with. The story begins with a rumour of a student-teacher relationship but the book is about much more than that. Rather than focusing on the student-teacher relationship and the mystery of who it might be, the novel uses it as a platform to explore other issues.

It’s not a mystery who the student and teacher are. In fact, from about page 50, it was obvious who the student was and it took very little guessing to determine who the teacher involved in the romantic relationship was. But it’s not supposed to be about the mystery. It’s about how the students, in particular the seven protagonists of the story, react to the rumours and how they behave towards themselves and those around them while this event is taking place. Each of the protagonists in the novel represents one of the seven deadly sins and I love how these character flaws were incorporated into the story. It was done in such a relatable and realistic way that it didn’t feel overly dramatic or forced. These characters have very real and human issues and it was nice to be able to relate to them because I know that I definitely deal with or have dealt with some of the problems that they’re having in the book.

Even though Seven Ways We Lie has seven POVs, I felt that it was done quite successfully. I didn’t feel like I was jumping around too much and every single perspective was necessary and made sense. I did struggle a little bit at the start because I felt like all of the character voices sounded very similar. It took a while to get used to all the perspectives and to distinguish them but when I figured it out, it was wonderful. What I found a little bit strange was that one perspective was written in verse, while the other six were in prose. And as beautiful as the poetry was, I didn’t really understand why it was included. That aside, my main issue with the writing was the dialogue. At times, it came across as a bit unnatural and fake. I couldn’t really imagine two people having a conversation and saying the things that they did. But as I progressed through the book, I became so engrossed by the story itself that I stopped noticing the dialogue.

Hearts fit together like hands.
Not by necessity.
By choice.
This is a very character-driven book and I enjoyed most of the characters in the book. There were standouts like Lucas and Valentine but I also really liked the other characters too. I had some issues with them at the start but they definitely grew on me and by the end of the book, I was completely rooting for them. There was such great diversity among the seven protagonists. We have a pansexual character, a character who has Asperger’s, a half-Mexican character and a character with suspected depression. It was great to see all these different things given so much attention in the book. All the characters had wonderful development and it was beautiful to see them either overcome their issues or learn to ignore them. The only character who I absolutely hated was Claire. She was just such a terrible friend and human being and did things that made me feel so sad for the people around her. Even though I liked her character growth in the novel, I still really dislike her.

While it did take me a while to get into Seven Ways We Lie, when I eventually did, it was a joy to read. It was so relatable and the characters were likeable for the most part. I enjoyed the writing and thought that the multiple perspectives were handled very well. This is probably the most realistic contemporary novel with a high school setting that I’ve ever read.

I wasnt able to connect with any of the many characters in the book and I found myself putting down the book a lot because it was dull and never really catching my attention.

Olivia is promiscuous and struggles with her reputation.

Matt likes to feel numb, until his crush Olivia is made his partner for a school project.

Juniper’s life is too perfect, and a secret is tearing her apart.

Claire is torn apart comparing herself to others, especially the perfect Juniper.

Kat is angry at her mom for leaving, her father for not caring and her sister Olivia for caring too much.

Lucas doesn’t want to be alone, and doesn’t know how to be true to himself.

Valentine has no need for friends, but needs to reveal the secret he has uncovered.

When a sex scandal between a student and teacher erupts at Paloma High, the lives of these seven teens will be changed forever.