Truth or Dare, Book 1Tags: YA, contemporary, mystery, suspense, thriller, betrayal
Summary
Echo Bay is a picture-perfect oceanside town with the expected batch of annual summer tourists and year-round privileged white teens. But it has an ominous claim to fame: several times in past Fall Festivals, a beautiful young woman mysteriously dies out in the water by Phantom Rock.
Little of this matters, however, with Tenley Reed’s arrival back in town. Wanting to claim her old life as the most popular and most desired girl in her grade, she throws one of her infamous house parties, complete with one of the Truth or Dare games for which she’s known. But this time, an unknown darer continues the game long past it’s time to end it. Three girls start receiving dares that they must follow through for fear of the darer exposing their deepest secrets: Tenley; her best friend Caitlin, the perfect All-American with the Harvard dream; and Sydney, the scholarship student. And for reasons they don’t know, the darer is not going to stop until they are all dead…
Review
I was hoping, when I picked this book up, that it would defy my expectations. With a synopsis that sounded like it had been lifted directly from a rejected Pretty Little Liars installment, I’ll admit that my expectations weren’t high. And while I did finish the book (which says something, I suppose, considering how I’m not afraid to DNF a book that I don’t have a chance of loving), I kind of wish that, well, I hadn’t.
Throughout the whole book, I kept on shaking my head and saying to myself, “What’s wrong with this, Steph? The writing is decent—it fulfills the basic requirements of a YA blockbuster—and yet, despite the fact that I am reading it, I have an utter lack of investment in the characters and their fates.” What, exactly, did TRUTH OR DARE lack that kept it only mediocre?
And then I realized: it was lacking a heart. There is no non-superficial reason for caring about the characters. Superficiality in fiction differs from superficiality in real life. In real life, superficiality refers to physical, tangible things like appearances or dress or money. In fiction, it refers to the lack of spark that makes the characters never read like anything more than a couple of puppets. And it doesn’t matter how many oh-so-sad tragedies you want to pile on a character—Tenley’s father, Sydney’s past, Caitlin’s kidnapping, Caitlin’s panic attacks, Caitlin’s everything—the fact is that the author did not succeed in making her characters come alive with personality quirks and turns of phrase and all those things that make a person unique. It doesn’t take a really jaded reader to notice this.
(Side note: TRUTH OR DARE is a product of Paper Lantern Lit, a company that essentially develops elaborate plots and then hires new authors to write the stories. I didn’t learn this until after I had already finished the book. The correlation between PLL-style books and—in my opinion—their general lack of heart has yet to be scientifically examined.)
Despite the lack of heart and my lack of investment in the characters, I still kept on reading, drawn by the idea that all would be revealed, and several hours’ worth of my time would be justified. That was before I got to the thoroughly unrewarding ending, which, compared to the tight plotting of the rest of the book, was sloppy, a slap-dash anti-climax put together as a weak payoff before the mystery continues painfully on to a Book Two. What the hell?! Is it too much to ask for some sort of payoff, some sort of conclusion, after trudging through 400 pages of drivel tailor-made for the nonthinking YA reader? There is no clearer sign that this was a concept created for purely financial reasons than such a cop-out ending that basically demands that if you wanted to be invested in the story, you had better be in it for the long haul. Too bad that wasn’t made clear earlier in the story for the rest of us who have no interest in making that sort of an investment in a forgettable teen mystery series.
Oh, I have no doubt that this book will find its audience. It’s just the sort of mediocre copycat drivel that drives the market nowadays.
Similar Authors
Sara Shepard
Kate Brian
Cover discussion: No comment. Next question.
Poppy / May 14, 2013 / Hardcover / 400pp. / $18.00
e-galley received from publisher and NetGalley for review.
Huh. How interesting that it's part of Paper Lantern. I've heard of that concept but aren't familiar with any books it produces. Do you know of any others off hand?
ReplyDeleteMeant to Be, Fury, Venom, The Butterfly Clues... Have you read any of them? If so, what did you think of them? Does knowing that they were part of a sort of story-production company now change your opinion of them?
DeleteI keep reading meh reviews of this one, pretty much all agreeing that it's derivative and lacking a spark of its own. I'm not the biggest PLL fan to begin with, so I doubt a pale imitation is going to draw me in either. It's interesting to watch these book packagers produce stories with varying success. I thought Paper Lantern's Meant to Be and Elizabeth Miles' Fury series were pretty good, but then there's a book like this, and it makes me wary of the whole concept of packagers hiring authors to write their books. In any case, thanks for your honest review! :-) Definitely not wasting my time with this.
ReplyDeleteTruth or Dare is the only Paper Lantern Lit book I've managed to finish; the others have barely lit a spark of interest in me. I guess this means that I'm not its target audience!
DeleteEeek! I feel for you; there are few things more annoying, as a reader, than finishing a book you don't feel a spark with just to end up with no real conclusion.
ReplyDeleteI also need to learn more about this Paper Lantern thing. From what it sounds like, I'm not a fan of the idea. Wasn't I Am Number 4 created in a similar way? Yeah, I wasn't a fan of that. We'll see.
I wouldn't necessarily put PL and the I Am Number Four kerfuffle in the same boat, for PL actually allows the final author to get pretty much all of the credit, instead of forcing them to make up some silly transparent pseudonym. PL reminds me more of Alloy Entertainment in that matter. And I used to not object to reading stories created by Alloy, but knowing that some of my early favorites were actually created by Alloy has irreversibly altered the way I think of them (my old favorites) now.
DeleteAw, sadness. But if the book is lacking a heart, it's hard to get impassioned about it and truly enjoy it. I can imagine that it could be difficult for a writer to infuse a book with heart when it's not actually one they created. They were probably handed either a synopsis or outline and told to write it. Not the way to make a strong connection, if you're just a writer for hire (much like all those James Patterson flunkies...).
ReplyDeleteYeah, well, we can't really make assumptions about what went through the author's mind, but more often than not, when the story idea was not the author's own but rather something given to them to then flesh out as they see fit, I'm able to tell that that's the case. Is it possible to take a story given to you to write by someone else, and to truly invest all of your being and energy into it? Sadly, I think I have yet to find an example that proves so.
DeleteI love your negative reviews, since, as a writer, it helps me know what NOT to do.
ReplyDeleteAhahaha, you're welcome. And best of luck with your writing!
DeleteHmm, I'll admit, I was really interested in this book. The synopsis really grips me! And even though the PLL like blurb should set bells off (I despise PLL), I was really looking forward to this. I've already seen so many negative reviews for this so I've decided on passing this one up. The Paper Lantern Lit thing sounds interesting though. I'll dig more into it...
ReplyDeleteI actually haven't seen many other reviews, in general, for this book. Are there really that many negative reviews of this one out there? It may be time for me to mosey over to Goodreads...
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI appreciated your analysis of what gives a book heart.
ReplyDeleteI've read some of the Pretty Little Liars series; I found the books to simply be fluffy, fun entertainment to pass a few hours. Truth or Dare intrigued me initially with its similar concept, but I think I may have to take a pass on it for now. It's hard for me to truly enjoy a book if the characters aren't easy to connect to, and it sounds like I might have a hard time with the characters in this one.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you! The ending was *so* full of "Hey, good job for sticking with me so you can find out about the ending but oops! Read on for more!" The characters were shallow and like you, I stayed until the end, only to be disappointed. *sigh* It's even more disappointing that it was a piece that was developed by a company to be handed out to a new author to write.
ReplyDelete