Review: Perfect Lies by Kiersten White


Perfect Lies
Kiersten White
Series: Mind Games, #2
Released: February 18th, 2014
Publisher: HarperTeen
Rating: 3.5 stars
Word Rating: Surprising!
Reviewed by: Blythe

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Annie and Fia are ready to fight back.

The sisters have been manipulated and controlled by the Keane Foundation for years, trapped in a never ending battle for survival. Now they have found allies who can help them truly escape. After faking her own death, Annie has joined a group that is plotting to destroy the Foundation. And Fia is working with James Keane to bring his father down from the inside.

But Annie's visions of the future can't show her who to trust in the present. And though James is Fia's first love, Fia knows he's hiding something. The sisters can rely only on each other - but that may not be enough to save them.



Once upon a time, I was a little girl with a mom and a dad and a sister, and the only monsters in the world were imaginary.

Then I became one of those monsters.

Perfect Lies was, hands down, one of the biggest surprises of 2013 for me. I dove into Perfect Lies with a combination of sheer curiosity and even some hope, along with a mindset of 'let's-just-get-this-over-with,' since I was expecting the worst. But little did I know that the mix of curiosity and hope I had for this sequel were proven to be for something, because I thought Perfect Lies was just a really good read.

As you may or may not know, I was not the biggest fan of Perfect Lies' predecessor, Mind Games...to say the least. I won't delve too much into why I did not like Mind Games, as you can find a full analyzation of that in my review for it; in short, my main issues with it were White's simple (and at times annoying) writing style, the abrupt transitioning between present day and flashbacks that resulted in something like book whiplash, and the fact that I truly did not care about the characters and what happened to them due to what I thought was poor characterization. Among other things, truthfully, but those were my three main issues.

Those issues, and some of the other lesser ones I had with Mind Games, were cleared up and even remedied completely with Perfect Lies. In this installment, Kiersten White's writing style resonated with me far more than it did in Mind Games, and I actually grew to find myself liking it. In Perfect Lies, I think White had a solid idea of who she wanted her characters to be and how she wanted her characters to be that she didn't truly have with Mind Games. In Mind Games, I soon became annoyed by the excessive use of repetition and a stream-of-consciousness writing style in Fia's chapters; I thought they were overused, and made her blatant mental instability feel almost forced and unnatural. In Perfect Lies, however, Kiersten White uses both the repetition and steam-of-consciousness writing style with Fia's chapters in moderation, with more of each towards the end of the novel to accentuate Fia's descent into further instability. That is what I was looking for and hoping Kiersten White would try to achieve in Mind Games, and was something I was left unfortunately very disappointed in. But of course, in Perfect Lies, I wholeheartedly feel that White has succeeded in depicting Fia's instability in a well-written and effective manner that left me caring for her as a character, even though I may not completely resonate with her on a personal level.

In addition to the growth in White's writing style, White's characterization was also met with a notable amount of growth. The characters and relationships are much more fleshed out, well-written, and realistically complex in Perfect Lies than they were in Mind Games. In this installment, Kiersten White used extremely good use of the character of Annie and her abilities, which was something I felt was lacking in Mind Games, and was hoping to see more of, since there is so much potential alongside having a blind MC. There's not much I can say or am able to say about the way in which Perfect Lies is written in regards to the chapters and POVs, but in simplest terms so as not to give anything away, the juxtaposition of both Annie and Fia's perspectives was great, and the countdown-like feel of the novel added a great layer of suspense and anxiety throughout.

Although there are some things I feel were left a bit too out in the open towards the end, especially with this installment being the series' final, and I wish I could have connected more emotionally with Fia, Perfect Lies was an absolute surprise and delight to read. I was about ready to give up on Kiersten White's novels after Mind Games, but I am incredibly happy I decided to give both her and this series a second shot. Fans of Mind Games are inevitably in for a treat with Perfect Lies, and yes, those who were not fans of Mind Games, like myself, could also be in for a treat with it.

9 comments :

  1. I was someone who was very pleasantly surprised by Mind Games - everything you disliked I loved, I guess because I didn't feel like the stream of consciousness or repetition made Fia's mental health deterioration feel forced. I'm so excited to know that I'll probably love this one even more, though I'm sad to learn this is the end of the series! I'm so used to trilogies, I guess I assumed this would be one as well.

    It's definitely nice to hear that there's some growth in the characterization; I know that's one of the things I struggled with in Mind Games, especially with Annie.

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    1. I can't wait to see what you think of Perfect Lies, then! I think you'll really love it if you were pleasantly surprised by Mind Games. And yeah, the characterization is better in this than it was in Mind Games, and definitely with Annie.

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  2. Sounds fantastic, good to see how a sequel can change your mind about the first book. I'm really curious about the complexity and abilities in this series and will look forward to it. Lovely review Blythe!

    Jeann @ Happy Indulgence

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    1. I still am not really a fan of book one, but this is definitely an improvement, so there's that. I hope you like it!

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  3. I haven't read Mind Games, so I have no idea what to even expect for Perfect Lies, but I'm glad that Book Two was good and made a turn around for you! <33

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    1. I'd look forward to seeing your thoughts for Mind Games, if you were to ever get around to it.

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  4. I really like Annie's character as well! But I felt that the relationships in this one were flimsy. Nonetheless, great review!

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    1. Aw, that's a shame. I thought they were much more solid in this one than they were in Mind Games.

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  5. I will be reading this one soon. I was actually not interested at all in this since I didn't enjoy Mind Games, and only got it for review after you said that it was a great surprise and liked it. I am looking forward to getting to this one now. I think that I liked Mind Games a bit more than you did, so hopefully this one will be a great read for me. :)

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