LITTLE WHITE LIES, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Freeform, Nov. 6, 2018, Hardcover, $17.99 (young adult)
Little White Lies, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, is being billed as the Southern mash up of Gilmore Girls and Pretty Little Liars, and the publisher is exactly right.
Eighteen-year-old auto mechanic Sawyer Taft did not expect her estranged grandmother to show up at her apartment door and offer her a six-figure contract to participate in debutante season. And she definitely never imagined she would accept. But when she realizes that immersing herself in her grandmother’s “society” might mean discovering the answer to the biggest mystery of her life-her father’s identity-she signs on the dotted line and braces herself for a year of makeovers, big dresses, bigger egos, and a whole lot of bless your heart. The one thing she doesn’t expect to find is friendship, but as she’s drawn into a group of debutantes with scandalous, dangerous secrets of their own, Sawyer quickly discovers that her family isn’t the only mainstay of high society with skeletons in their closet. There are people in her grandmother’s glittering world who are not what they appear, and no one wants Sawyer poking her nose into the past. As she navigates the twisted relationships between her new friends and their powerful parents, Sawyer’s search for the truth about her own origins is just the beginning. —Synopsis provided by Freeform
Little White Lies is full of intrigue, and that’s not just because of Sawyer’s search for her father’s identity. Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ supporting characters are deceptively simple at first glance. Once you dig a little deeper, however, you discover they are multifaceted. Barnes could have easily played to stereotypes but instead chose a more interesting and more satisfying path.
There are a number of twists in Little White Lies that come as complete surprises. There are a few that I picked up on before the “big reveal,” but overall I was swept up in a complex story that the synopsis doesn’t do justice.
I read Little White Lies in less than a 24-hour period. I was hooked from the beginning and enjoyed it to the end.
