Everyone Here is Lying Book Review

Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Today, I am back with another book review! A couple of posts ago, I talked about a Shari Lapena event that happened in Pittsburgh. The reason for the event was to promote her newest book, Everyone Here is Lying. Now that I have finally been able to read it, I have some thoughts on it. So, let’s get into it!

The book is told in multiple perspectives of family and neighbors. Avery Wooler, a little 9-year-old girl has gone missing. Of course, the family are suspects, but everyone seems to be hiding a secret. The neighborhood of Stanhope isn’t as safe as everyone thinks it is.

There are multiple secrets that everyone wants to keep. Let’s start with the father, William Wooler. He’s an upstanding doctor with his own practice, but he is having an affair with his wife, and hits his daughter. Nora (the mistress), is having an affair with William, and Avery likes to cause chaos and disruption, etc. Don’t worry these aren’t spoilers.

I found this book to be really intriguing because we get everyone’s perspective. We get the father, mother, brother, mistress, co-worker, detectives, you name it. And the switch will happen so fast its over before you even know it. Lapena’s book Not a Happy Family was written the same way. I don’t mind the constant switching of perspectives. With so many characters though, it would take me a second to remember who was who/who was related to who. Which pulled me from the story a little bit.

I loved the characters though. I liked knowing what everyone’s secret was and watching the others find out. It definitely drew out the suspense of the novel. Plus, it keeps the reader guessing as to who took Avery.

However, as I’m writing this, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is not my favorite novel by Shari Lapena. The ending was lackluster for me. It was good don’t get me wrong, but I was expecting more. There were times when I thought someone else was going to do something bad to another character. I don’t want to give too much away and spoil the book. I just wanted more to happen.

Overall, I liked the characters and how the relationships were portrayed. I liked seeing each secret slowly unravel. I think the writing was really good. The chapters were also super short which I personally love. But I just feel like something was missing. There was no shock factor for me. It felt unfinished. I would rate this book 3/5 stars, and I would recommend her other books like Not a Happy Family, The Unwanted Guest, or The Couple Next Door first.

Alright folks, that is all I have for this week! Come back next Wednesday for another blog post! As always thank you for reading:)