Book Review: Two Truths and a Lie (The Lying Game #3) by Sara Shepard

It bugs me that I didn't review the first two books, but it can't be helped now...

Summary (as seen on Goodreads):

Sutton Mercer watches from the afterlife as her long-lost twin, Emma Paxton, takes over her identity to solve her murder. But after ruling out her early leads, Emma still hasn’t found Sutton’s killer. A lot of people wanted her dead—but one name keeps popping up: Thayer Vega. When the gorgeous and mysterious Thayer returns to town, Emma has to move fast to figure out whether he’s back for revenge…or if he already got it.

Yays:

• Subtle differences between Sutton and Emma, such as Emma's dislike of pineapples and Sutton never saying "sir". While Emma has gotten down the big differences, these little ones still make it difficult for her to continue in Sutton's life, which is interesting.
• Progress with Emma and Ethan's relationship is nice. At least it makes it feel like the story is actually going somewhere.
• Still a fan of the strange dual point of view thing. While it is unusual, it is appropriate for the story.

So-sos:

• The writing isn't extremely "clean." It very much reads like a middle grade novel, while I feel like this series straddles middle grade and young adult. Therefore I'm not so strict about wanting good form, but at the same time I don't think any book in this series will get a 5-star rating if this keeps up.

Nays:

• The books have a predictable pattern of one person seeming to be a suspect, then turning out to not be it. This wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't so obvious, but unfortunately, it is. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I recall from the first two books.)
• How do all these high school students get beer? I even double checked and looked up Arizona law, and people must be 21 to buy alcoholic drinks.
• A lot of the writing can be "telly." An example would be "Mr. Mercer looked horrified." There are facial features that the author could have described to help readers actually see the scene.
• While the girls have little regard for their pranks hurting people, framing someone for plagiarism is an area that is really crossing a line, even for these girls. I was surprised that there wasn't at least one other person attempting to be a voice of reason.
• Realism question when it comes to the psychiatric hospital. It's true that psychiatric hospitals won't release information about their patients, even if asked specifically by name (the joys of being a psychology major), but I'm not convinced that the assistant wouldn't check the phone number to make sure it came from somewhere legitimate before giving out information so freely.

Overall, I'm not a great rater or reviewer of chick lit, so I'll probably give pretty similar ratings throughout the rest of my ratings for this series: 3 jellyfish.

Thanks for tuning in! Hopefully, I'll be able to put the rest of the series' reviews up as well in the coming weeks.