I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
The Lies We Tell by Katie Zhao Published by Bloomsbury YA on 11/15/22
Genres: Contemporary, Mystery & Detective, Romance, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 352
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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Anna Xu moves out of her parent's home and into the dorms across town as she starts freshman year at the local, prestigious Brookings University. But her parents and their struggling Chinese bakery, Sweetea, aren't far from campus or from mind, either. At Brookings, Anna wants to keep up her stellar academic performance and to investigate the unsolved campus murder of her childhood babysitter. She also finds a familiar face–her middle-school rival, Chris Lu. The Lus happen to be the Xu family's business rivals since they opened Sunny's, a trendy new bakery on Sweetea's block. Chris is cute but still someone to be wary of... until a vandal hits Sunny's and Anna matches the racist tag with a clue from her investigation.
Anna grew up in this town, but more and more she feels like maybe she isn't fully at home here–or maybe it's that there are people here who think she doesn't belong. When a very specific threat is made to Anna, she seeks out help from the only person she can; Anna and Chris team up to find out who is stalking her and take on a dangerous search into the hate crimes happening around campus. Can they root out the ugly history and take on the current threat?
Short and Sweet Review
It’s Annas first year in college and she’s going to Brookings University. Anna is thinking about a lot and she’s living in the campus dorms while her parents bakery is across town and not doing so well, especially since there’s another bakery across the street. College is hard for any first year but Anna goes in with the intention continue getting good grades but also try to solve the murder of her childhood babysitter who died at Brookings. Things start to get dangerous when Anna suspects she has a stalker and there’s a hate crime committed at the other bakery. Now Anna really has to watch her back or face becoming another victim.
I was drawn to this book because I love a good mystery and the fact that Anna was going to go to the same college where her babysitter met her demise and try to solve a cold case is what got me. Anna is a typical college student trying hard to get good grades and just balancing everything in her life in general. Anna tries to make friends on campus which she finds hard but she makes a friend on an app named Jane and they connect and at first Jane seems to be someone Anna can turn to until she gets too weird. At this point Anna cuts her off and Jane is the stalker but it’s like a catfish stalker because Jane isn’t really Jane. I will say when this happened I think Anna should have been smarter and kept the texts between them as evidence. Anna also connects with Chris, whose family actually owns the bakery across from her family’s. Anna isn’t sure if she can trust him but he ends up becoming her best ally. I wasn’t really into the romance I do think these two were better off as friends. We follow Anna as she tries to get clues and avoid getting caught in the crossfire. I did like how it felt like a thriller in the way that Anna had to watch her back and just be aware of her surroundings. Zhao also did a good job representing how Asian hate is still a thing and she did it in a way that shows how it impacts communities and needs to be talked about. The ending was good and I will say satisfying. I was glad that everything was answered and wrapped up.
Overall, this book was great. I enjoyed the premise and the characters. If I had to nitpick at something it would just be Anna’s decision making she wasn’t good at being sly and staying under the radar, other than that this was a solid book.
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