Book Review: The Liar Society by Lisa & Laura Roecker

The Liar Society

Lisa & Laura Roecker

Publication Date: March 1st 2011

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Pages: 368

Genre: Young Adult, Mystery

Kate has no choice but to prove once and for all that Grace's death was more than just a tragic accident. But secrets haunt the halls of her elite private school--secrets people will do anything to protect. Even if it means getting rid of the girl trying to solve a murder. 

Winner of one of the most frustrating endings ever award, not because it's bad, it's quite a good ending, just very frustrating and now I have no choice but to pick up the next one. Darn you, Roecker sisters, darn you…

When I first started reading this book, I wasn't sure if I was going to take the time to review it afterwards, not because it was bad in any way, but because it wasn't quite my normal type of book and it wasn't leaving a lasting impression, but the ending was enough to make me react (as you can read above) so I decided that it deserves a review afterall.

This book is mostly a fluff young adult mystery read. I enjoyed reading it, though didn't find the characters all that well developed, especially the non main characters. They had a tendency to be flat, one note: the queen bee, the social climber, the bad boy, the nerd, the parents never there, etc. But about halfway through things started gripping me more and I couldn't put it down, I wanted to know the answers the mystery and I was starting to get the impression that there might not be anything Kate could do in end, but I wanted her to conquer so badly.

Honestly the point where things started to get gripping for me was when the adults became involved as being part of the societies. At that point it became true conspiracy, true cover-up, and led me to being incredibly frustrated by the fact that the police are involved as well.

I also sense that the Roecker sisters have tried to satire or exaggerate sexism by putting it in the girls vs boys society, but for me it fell a little flat. I just cannot believe that this Brotherhood wouldn't feel guilty for causing the death of the girl who hung herself or even in the case of Grace's death. Both the Headmaster and Alistair seem to run around guilt-free and the police in the Brotherhood don't even care. I find this very hard to believe. Another thing that miffed me was the very obvious girl forced to become loner trope.  Why didn't Maddie and the other girls invite Kate back into the Sisterhood? Instead they set her off, made fun of her, made her endure the grief by herself. If they had really been friends for so long, how could she have just cut her off and Taylor didn't seem so bad when she finally TALKED to Kate, so why would she have been so cold?

The mystery itself I enjoyed a lot, I enjoyed all the clues and the Latin references. This is honestly a guilty pleasure read for me and you can be sure I'll be picking up the next one.

It's not the greatest book in the world, but definitely not the worst. The writing is not bad, nor the plot, though the characters come out a bit flat. I have one big recommendation however, if you like the Nickelodeon series "House of Anubis" you will like this book, and if you like this book you will probably love "House of Anubis" (I do warn you it is a guilty pleasure love, no fancy super awesome series or anything). They are both conspiracy related and finding out the secrets of a school is just way too fun in my opinion.

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