The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

Four young girls play a cruel game with grownup consequences 

The Lying Game is played by four 15-year-old girls who are inseparable at an all-girls boarding school. Brought together at Salten House for different reasons, they are all troubled in their own lives and find acceptance and family among each other. Together, they play the lying game. Keeping a tally of points, each girl tells silly lies to their peers and adults alike. They only lie to others, never to each other.

The girls become so tightly woven together that they end up isolating themselves from their classmates. No one in the small town believes a word they say. Eventually they find themselves chained to a very big lie that they can't back out of, and they're removed from school overnight. Their group is divided and they reach adulthood on very different paths separated from each other. That is, until the three girls receive a three-word text from their friend Kate who remained in Salten.

All of them know what the text is about, but no one dares ask Kate about it over text. They all find themselves back in Salten in Kate's home. It's clear someone knows too much about their expulsion from Salten House. The police are now involved, and all of them have so much to lose that they only have one choice - get their story straight and keep lying.

I felt their excitement, I felt their fear, I was one of the girls.

I felt like a fifth in their suspenseful story. I physically felt tense throughout this book and I was impressed with the friendship it entailed. I have a scatter of friends myself, but I never had my own "tribe" as they say these days. A collection of friends who are equally devoted to just each other. These girls had a special bond even if it caused them a little trouble growing up. 

Ruth Ware does a great job making the reader care about the girls. We know they've done wrong and yet we are on their side. We want to help them. Just when you think you know the truth of what happened and whom is truly responsible, Ware provides another equally probable story line and as a reader we just can't decide what to believe. Not unlike the girls of Salten.

The Lying Game is a must-read. I don't say that about every book I read, and I read a lot. ;) I've already placed holds on Ruth Ware's other books from my library. I loved it so much, I may just have to post a separate blog simply to answer the book club questions.

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