Liar by Justine Larbalestier – review

Micah will freely admit that she’s a compulsive liar, but that may be the one honest thing she’ll ever tell you. Over the years she’s duped her classmates, her teachers, and even her parents, and she’s always managed to stay one step ahead of her lies. That is, until her boyfriend dies under brutal circumstances and her dishonesty begins to catch up with her. But is it possible to tell the truth when lying comes as naturally as breathing?

I’ve seen reviews on Liar from the perspectives of librarians and YA readers, and the praise in those circles has been high. Rightly so, too, I might add. Except I mainly write mystery and crime fiction reviews, admittedly casting as wide a net as possible, so that will be my perspective here, because I think it applies.

The crime genre has a nice history of various pathic narrators: Sociopathic, psychopathic, etc. Usually the true natures of these narrators are hidden in plain sight waiting for the astute reader to follow Ariadne’s thread to the Minotaur in the center of the maze that is the intended narrative truth. The realization that the narrator was lying, or more specifically, obfuscating, would come later, and the appreciation for design of the puzzle box would come later after a re-read.

What sets Liar apart is that you know right from the outset that the narrator is lying to you. This isn’t even something that the reader discovers, the narrator just flat out tells you. It is a really different experience knowing that you are being lied to rather then realizing later you are dealing with an unreliable narrator. Even though you are put on guard and aware that a deception is going to take place, Larbalestier flourishes under this severe scrutiny. She leads you along expertly by the hand, and even though you are watching where you step, you still fall into some of her pre-set traps.

So why is this crime fiction? Or at least flirting pretty heavily with crime fiction? Because I think that Justine Larbalestier is a crime fiction fan, and I also think that she knew what she was doing: writing a psycho noir. There, I said it. And I’m not taking it back, either. Justine Larbalestier wrote a psycho noir. She wrote The Killer Inside Me except with teenagers and furry (or not). She wrote a psycho noir told with verve and maybe a touch of the fantastic. This is Jim Thompson for the high school set.

I will say this very clearly (but oddly evasively): astute readers will pick up on one of the prime central twists. Specifically the one that kicks off the second section. Very astute readers, not afraid to take the leap, will nail it, and slightly less astute readers will be close. But the interesting thing about this is the way that all of this is handled. By the time I was closing out the first section, I was so confident of the “truth” that the book was becoming a bit of a chore to read. I mean, after all, why finish the book if I know what’s going to happen, right? Larbalestier takes an interesting approach here by directly admitting that which was lingering in the reader’s mind, and at that point you’re really on your toes, because the question then becomes where is the book really going to go if she just admitted what I thought would be the final reveal only halfway through the book? Now I really got to keep reading.

And I think that last sentence really sums up the book:  “got to keep reading.” Larbalestier turns in a master’s class of first-person POV narration and really kicks out the jams here. I often find myself bored or indifferent with a lot of first-person POV stories, but this one does it just right.

Bottom line is that Larbalestier wrote a great book that kicks a lot of tukhus and will appeal to readers of all sorts of fiction. Grab it now, you won’t be disappointed.

About Brian

Brian loves both kinds of books -- fiction and non-fiction. He is an all around book john and reviewing roustabout. His semi-regular columns at BSC include BSC Radar Screen, The Electric Mayhem, Conversations with the Bookless and Short Thoughts on Short Fiction. He blogs at Observations From the Balcony.