Thursday, July 4, 2013

Truth or Dare by Jacqueline Green

Published May 14th 2013 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

When a simple round of truth or dare spins out of control, three girls find it’s no longer a party game. It’s do or die.


It all started on a whim: the game was a way for Tenley Reed to reclaim her popularity, a chance for perfect Caitlin “Angel” Thomas to prove she’s more than her Harvard application. Loner Sydney Morgan wasn’t even there; she was hiding behind her camera like usual. But when all three start receiving mysterious dares long after the party has ended, they’re forced to play along—or risk exposing their darkest secrets.


How far will Tenley, Caitlin and Sydney go to keep the truth from surfacing? And who’s behind this twisted game?


Set against the backdrop of Echo Bay, an isolated beach town haunted by misfortune, Truth or Dare is a highly charged debut that will keep readers in suspense from beginning to end.

Rating: 2/5

Review:

In a small town, a group of beautiful girls are being sent anonymous notes.  The note sender is threatening to reveal their darkest secrets if they don't do exactly what the notes say to.

Oh, wait.  Haven't I read this book before?  I'm pretty sure I have, but it was called Pretty Little Liars and it was much better than this.

I loved Pretty Little Liars (or at least the first 4 books, but that's a rant for another time), and I've been waiting for someone to pull off another story of its kind.  But I'll have to keep waiting, because Truth or Dare didn't quite get it right.   After a game of truth or dare at a party, an anonymous "darer" began sending three girls notes, continuing the game.  The darer threatens to reveal the girls' darkest secrets if they don't play.

And that's where we hit the first snag, because the secrets these girls are keeping aren't even that interesting.  Certainly not scandalous enough to warrant the lengths they go to to keep them secret.  And, apparently, none of them has more than one secret, so the darer keeps making the same threats over and over.  By the end, it felt tired.

The seond problem I had with this book was the girls' backstories.  Tenley's father is dead.  Caitlin was kidnapped, though the book never specifies for how long or how she was found.  Sydney has an addiction to playing with fire.  These aspects of the characters could have been really interesting, but they weren't incorporated into the book well.  Instead of enhancing the story, they muddled it, and really held the plot back.

My last problem with this book was the ending, which was rushed, predictable, and just an overall disappointment.

This book gets 2 stars, because the writing wasn't bad on a technical level, and I was able to finish the book.  I certainly won't be reading the rest of this series, though.  It's not worth the time.

I received a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.

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