Sometimes I Lie
Ratings128
Average rating3.7
oh this was so so good, from the first page i was invested and it was so twisty and so unpredictable and alice feeney finally got another 5 star from me she never misses for me. THAT ENDING WAS- jaw dropping and everything i needed
I really enjoyed this mystery/thriller from start to finish. I did not expect it go in the direction it did, which makes a good thriller.
This story begins with the main character, Amber, in a coma unable to remember how she got there. She can hear everything going on around her but cannot move or speak. Through flashbacks and diary entries, the truth is slowly revealed, and it is a shocking truth.
I think I like this book so much because it's dark and disturbing. The inner workings of the Amber's mind are intriguing. The reader sees all the other characters through the lens of Amber's mind, and she admits in first lines of the book that she lies. Therefore, the reader does not know what or who to trust. Are her memories truthful? Are the other characters really how she portrays them? The author makes great use of this unreliable narrator.
Alice Feeney has proven her skill in this debut novel, and I look forward to reading more of her work.
It was good. I was getting a little bored towards the middle but then there are reveals one right after the other. I listened to the audiobook and at one point I actually had to pause it to wrap my head around /one of/ the twists!
We picked this book for book club and WOW is there a lot to talk about! Now that I've finished it, I need to re-read it knowing what I know now. If you are someone who likes plot twists you didn't see coming, this is for you! If you like twisty mysteries where you can't trust what you assume, this is for you!
This was a delightfully quick read, which I was in need of after hitting a small slump. I found the writing to be a bit bland to read, but I suspect that was due to the author trying to convey the lack of emotions of some of the characters. This was a good thriller, and I would have given it four stars if the ending had not left me feeling unsatisfied. I understood the twists, and I really liked the idea of them, but I think if they had been revealed more gradually (over 20% of the book versus 10%) the impact of the individual twists would have hit me more. I will say that I only saw about half of the twists coming, and even then I wasn't really sure.
A genuinely engaging and surprising read, but not a favourite of the genre so far.
Ooooh, this one was rather riveting.
I had to keep turning pages to discover how it would all end.
Trust me, you won't see it coming!
i officially despise back to back alternative timelines
& this book just lost me idk, it just wasnt as good as i expected it to be
and a LOT of things were just trop tirés par les cheveux honestly, at some point i had to violently roll my eyes
it was doing too much, too many twists, too many reveals, too many turns, & those hallucinations? ass
very unsatisfactory read, 2.5
I liked the twists, but just couldn't care enough to be shocked. Perhaps if I read this vs listening, I would feel different.
Ingenious. Cleverly done misdirection, the type that had me, at the appropriate moment, put down the book, close my eyes, and rethink everything I'd read so far. (This is not a spoiler. The astute reader, picking up on the subtle “SOMETIMES I LIE” hint in the title and on page one, might already be expecting some sleight-of-plot.)
There are no sympathetic characters in this book. Nobody to root for, nobody to like. Normally this redirects a book toward my Abandoned pile, but not this time: the writing was tight, the story gripping. I also forgave the clumsy Dear Diary portions: no ten-year-old writes like that—nobody writes like that, it was just an obvious exposition tool—I chose to grit my eyes, roll my teeth, and stick with it. In hindsight, well, no spoilers but yeah, of course I get it now.
What's there to like? A lot, actually. I really enjoyed this book. Feeney has the gift of pacing: building tension, throwing crumbs, tossing in occasional small twists, perfect phrases that you know are hints but don't yet understand their meaning. She kept me curious and engaged the whole way through. Brava. I hope there's more where that came from.
I've been returned to my factory settings as a human being, rather than a human doing.
My goodness. This book twisted my mind so much so that I don't even know how to unravel it. I had to sit down and think about every single thing I've read. It's like whatever I know in the beginning towards the middle of the book is... not the thing I thought I knew.It's like being cheated on, being deceived, being strung all along.
The mystery, the history, the confusion – oh, it's so cleverly interweaved that I could not stop reading. TW though, there's rape scene (which is so sickening).
A lot of people would think I have a dream job, but nightmares are dreams too.
What a read. What a mindfucking read.
Recensie van audioboek (via Storytel)
Heel vlotte en intens geschreven thriller die ik niet opzij kon leggen. Als lezer word je continu op het verkeerde been gezet en word je getrakteerd op de ene na de andere plottwist. Enorm meeslepend en een echte pageturner.
Alleen, de plottwist op het einde was er voor mij te veel aan. Het laat het verhaal open en werpt enorme vraagtekens op alle gebeurtenissen waarvan we dachten dat ze waren opgelost. Onnodig en zorgt er voor dat de voorgaande ontwikkelingen wat goedkoop nasmaken. Maar los van die laatste pagina, heb ik deze thriller met enorm veel smaak gelezen.
3.75“Some people appear happy on the outside and you only know they're broken inside if you listen as well as look.”You can never go wrong with [a:Alice Feeney 15904689 Alice Feeney https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1484753445p2/15904689.jpg]. This is my 3rd book by her and I have one more ([b:I Know Who You Are 45419076 I Know Who You Are Alice Feeney https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png 56880666]) to finish and then I will be done with her backlist! I LOVE her writing style its so fast paced and very easy to get through. Also in her books, chapters are very short so that's another bonus point! For a debut this was pretty good, but the ending might seem a bit too far fetched for some coz in classic [a:Alice Feeney 15904689 Alice Feeney https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1484753445p2/15904689.jpg] style she threw all the twists one after the other in the end but I enjoyed it! What I didn't enjoy was the open ending, in thrillers I love when everything is tied up with a neat bow but in this we had to keep on guessing the ending and unfortunately I don't like that.“Sometimes I think it's best to say nothing at all, silence cannot be misquoted.”Also if you want to predict the twist you NEED to pay CLOSE attention to all the clues she leaves throughout the book and I mean CLOSEE attention, coz I got abt 3/4 clues perfectly and I was kinda mad that I missed the other clues. So to get/predict the full twist/ending perfectly PAY CLOSE ATTENTION;)“I've hidden memories in boxes inside my head before. Sometimes it's the only way to deal with things.”So yeah..do I recommend this? DUH!! Read it!!! “It can be dangerous to ask a question when you already know the answer.”Also I have a question how did she get the pov of a person in a coma? did she guess it or get it from a person who has actually been in a coma? Coz I feel like it was done well:) (how ironic is that quote right above this
Quite a spellbinding read from start to finish! We are not sure how Amber ended up in the hospital in this coma , but she does admit that sometimes she lies. This was like a puzzle and I was trying to put the pieces together, but couldn't entirely trust all the pieces. Very cleverly written and I loved hearing what Amber was thinking while in this coma sizing up everyone in the room and giving us her insight. Four stars because I felt there was almost too much going on. I'm not sure how to explain it, but with all the lies I think I wanted a more defined plot line. I also was not a fan of the last few chapters.
⭐️3.5/5
(i'm redoing a bunch of ratings because i don't know what parasite was in my head when making these decisions)
oh gosh i'm not too sure what to say on this one - i felt quite underwhelmed and almost confused and what seem like plot points chucked in for the ‘shock/intensity' factor - major TW that I foolishly didn't look up before reading.
the main twist yes, was really good and did turn my world on its head and it took a bit of getting used to but it started to make a lot of sense towards the end, and the chapters that were diary entries were sure my favourite. the ending definitely surprised me, and i did grow to like the character of amber.
i chewed through this in 4 hours, i couldn't put it down so i definitely liked it i just didn't LOVE it, if you know what i mean.
You will hate every character in this book, which is part of what makes it so compelling.
The book started out slowly which bored me at first, but I'm glad I stayed for the biggest twist ever. A bit confused at the ending tho.
I am on vacation, and I was looking for a domestic thriller to lose myself in for a little while. I read the reviews for this book and was excited to read it. I started out listening to the audio but switched to the printed format to pay better attention. After finishing this book, I wished I had stuck with the audio version because at least that one was free. This book's premise is that an unreliable narrator is trying to find out why she ended up in a hospital in a coma. We go back and forth through time as the character tries to figure out what happened. The author accomplishes this by telling the story in the present, the recent past, and the not so recent past. The not so recent past is relayed to us through a series of journal entries. This would not have been so bad, but then we find out that the character's sister writes the journal entries. So as you can imagine, this flips the whole narrative on its head. Not only do we have an unreliable narrator, but we also have a crazy one who, as an adult, is still engaging with a childhood imaginary friend. If this isn't enough, we have some sort of subplot happening that a jilted college lover is stalking our main character from almost two decades ago. It really is all too much. The plot is unbelievable, and the storytelling is way too convoluted, and this author is pretentious and thinks way too highly of their writing abilities. I still rate the book a solid three stars because the sheer ridiculousness of it kept me inside my hotel room all day long.
This is such a fascinating story and such a quick read!
There is a plethora of plot twists and a rather ambiguous ending, so be prepared for that. The book requires a lot of thinking and even after I am done reading it and thought about it for a long time, I am still not 100% sure that what I think happened, actually happened.
I quite liked this read and I would recommend it, but beware - there are some very heavy subjects being discussed and displayed in the book.
WOW. I mean, wow. Amazing debut by this author and I'm SO glad to have caught this one. A story that grabs you on page one, I was literally sneaking in pages every moment I had and finished it in less than a day. I can honestly say I reached a point where everything was clear and the entire story comes together where I literally had to put the book down and rethink everything I thought I knew. Highly, highly recommended, I'll surely be back to catch more from this author!!
Contains spoilers
I wouldn't say I hated this, but I had to leave a review saying I sort of saw the twist coming in a sense because of its similarity to Rock Paper Scissors in the sense that (SPOILER FOR THAT BOOK TOO)
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the flashbacks were not from the perspective we thought they were from. That would've been about a 4-star, but then those SA scenes came out of nowhere and I had to take multiple breaks because of them. I had no clue they were coming and I wasn't ready, nor would I have picked this up to begin with.
The ending sort of made no sense which was also frustrating. I sort of jumped when I turned the page and saw the acknowledgements. (was Ebook so I didn't know how close to the end I was)
I'll admit I convinced myself Amber was going to open her eyes to discover that the hospital was all an elaborate hoax to make her think that's where she was. I let myself down with that one haha.
I'm really glad Alice Feeney seems to have improved since this story.
Quite the page turner but found a couple of the reveals a bit predictable. Worth a read if you fancy it!