Live Your Best Lie by Jessie Weaver

      Summer Cartwright has it all: millions of followers, all of the newest designer clothes, and the coolest friends. But during her annual Halloween party she goes missing. A mysterious post on her account claims that one of four people killed Summer, her best friend, her ex boyfriend, her frenemy, or her wanna-be. Live Your Best Lie tells the story of Summer’s murder though different points of view, social media posts, and police transcripts. Can you guess the killer?

       I had high hopes for this novel, I find novels that delve into the toxic side of social media and influencers so interesting. Having a criminal case open to the public eye can bring a lot of conflict and drama to a murder mystery, and while I enjoyed this feature of the novel, the rest of it left a lot to be desired. I think my main complaint with this book was the lack of motive. The characters all had “secrets” that were referenced in nearly every chapter, but it took almost the entire book for secrets to be revealed, which made the perpetrator almost impossible to predict. Usually an unpredictable mystery is a good thing, but in this case, the lack of evidence and information on the characters created an uninteresting novel. Some people mentioned that subtle clues were placed throughout the novel alluding to the culprit, but I just didn’t see any. With no evidence, motive, or clues I simply could not solve this mystery. Even after the secrets were revealed and the was killer unveiled, the logistics and the reason for the murder were just skimmed past, only a few pages were dedicated to talking about the killer. But I can’t reveal too much more without spoiling the ending, so I’ll leave this here. 

       Despite some of my complaints, I did finish the book. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really great either. I kept reading because I had to figure out who killed Summer and I also wanted to know each characters motive. And I will admit, once the four suspects started working together I was intrigued, and the scene leading up to the arrest of one of the four suspects was thrilling. It was definitely one of my favorite parts of the book, and it revealed the true nature of more than one character. The other reason I soldiered through this book was for the romance subplot—I just had to figure out if Adam and Grace would get together. 

      So, my final thoughts? It was okay. It has a sequel that follows Amanda, Cora’s little sister, but I doubt I’m going to read it, I just wasn’t a huge fan of Weaver’s writing. On another note, Live Your Best Lie reminded me a lot of One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus, so if enjoyed that novel you’ll probably like this one. If you were unimpressed with Live Your Best Lie but want to give the influencer mystery trope another shot, I would try Going Dark by Melissa de la Cruz. Going Dark has some shocking twists and it’s storyline is far more complex than your typical YA mystery.

      P.S. I just want to put a final reminder here that in the end my opinion doesn’t really matter, don’t not read a novel because of somebody else’s negative review, we all have different tastes and that’s okay! I’ve been influenced by negative reviews far too many times and have missed out on some great reads, so if you want to read it, read it! And if you have read this book let me know your thoughts down below!

Thanks for reading!

Published February 11th 2024