Lying About Last Summer

Product Information

The main character skye was a lovely character who i found reacted well to everything that happened to her within the book.

As you guys are aware, this is my Murder Month where I read books that have a crime/thriller/mystery element to them. Guilt stemming from her belief that she did not do anything when she could have saved her sister Luisa, if only she had not remained frozen on the spot and unable to move watching the events unfolding in front of her. It's beautifully subtle in its slow reveal of what happened last summer, which works well alongside the vivid characters who are all dealing with having lost someone they care about.

However, one year later, she is sent to a camp for kids who have had lost someone close to them: someone they miss.

Fast forward one year and Skye’s mother is packing her off for a summer getaway at Morley Hill Activity and Adventure Centre for six days and five nights of back-to-back activities all fully-funded by a charity for bereaved kids. But when she arrives, Skye starts receiving text messages from someone pretending to be her dead sister. Vast in scope, Wallman successfully manages to overlay the witty narrative of shrewd sixteen-year-old Skye Colton with a cast of nuanced characters and place them in the potentially cringe-inducing confines of a bereavement camp. Could all of her concerns stem from an overactive imagination or is there something more ominous underway at Morley and who, if any, of her campmates can she really trust. Debut author Sue Wallman deftly balances the plot of a thriller with a moving exploration of the effect of bereavement on the heroine, Skye, and the other teenagers in the story - it gives the book emotional depth, but you never get the 'ding, dong, issue coming through' feeling that you might in less capable hands.There she meets an assortment of characters, including shy and retiring Fay, and strange, angry Joe.

While I do wish that it had been a little longer, so there would have been more time to explore the characters in-depth, the pages were jam-packed with a pacy plot and unexpected revelations to keep me completely enthralled from start to finish. There is mystery surrounding Luisa's death, the messages in the private chat and some of Skye's fellow campers, and when everything started to come together into its exploding conclusion I was on the edge of my seat. Highly recommend for the teen audience (easy four star) and with more than enough depth to keep adults engaged and entertained. In short, Lying About Last Summer is street smart YA for the 12-16 age bracket who are intuitive enough to read between the lines, able to appreciate the excellent character development but demand the thrill of the chase and a rousing denouement!All of the kids at the summer camp have lost someone close, but is bringing them together such a good idea? This was skilfully done as the author would have had to walk a very thin line to keep the plot focused on recovery rather than making the storyline all about the villain of the piece. It wasn't as twisty as I was expecting, as I had guessed a few of the things that came out towards the end, but it was still a stellar, enjoyable read. How the mysterious texts (very PLL) were handled was amazing as Skye was just so level headed about the whole situation, keeping it as evidence and not freaking out like so many other high schoolers I've read about.

Skye emerges as a good heroine, it is full of teenage characters who all have their own personal stories to tell. Partially narrated in the form of flashbacks to the period surrounding Luisa’s murder, Wallman does an excellent job of capturing the build up to Luisa’s fate and highlighting Skye’s burden of guilt. This YA thriller really kept me going to the bitter end, and I found the second half to be fast-paced and simply impossible to put down where Skye becomes more paranoid of everyone around her at the activity camp, and comes to wonder if they're responsible in some way. However, before too long she starts receiving messages from her dead sister through a password protected messaging app they always used to chat away from the prying eyes of their parents.I was expecting a big plot twist at the end, regarding the main story, but what we get is satisfactory.