Tag: four star read

Four Star Book, mystery, ya

What I Saw and How I Lied Review

Courtney/Enchanted.to.Read.You
  • Title: What I Saw and How I Lied
  • Author: Judy Blundell
  • Book Form: Audiobook
  • Pages: 284
  • Publisher: Scholastic Press
  • Genre: YA, Historical Fiction, Mystery
  • Rating: ★★★★


When Evie’s father returned home from World War II, the family fell back into its normal life pretty quickly. But Joe Spooner brought more back with him than just good war stories. When movie-star handsome Peter Coleridge, a young ex-GI who served in Joe’s company in postwar Austria, shows up, Evie is suddenly caught in a complicated web of lies that she only slowly recognizes. She finds herself falling for Peter, ignoring the secrets that surround him . . . until a tragedy occurs that shatters her family and breaks her life in two.

– Goodreads

I kept seeing this book pop up on Scribd, and I’m so glad I finally gave it a listen. Mysteries have been one of my favorite genres since I was young. I remember reading my mom’s Mary Higgins Clark books as a pre-teen and teen and never being able to get enough of the suspense and the whodunnit.

My favorite thing about this book was the heroine. Evie was a teen coming into her own skin and trying to make her own decisions. She falls for an older man, and things just go downhill. She’s learning how to navigate first love and reading signals. Evie definitely grew from the beginning to end of this novel and it was a great thing to see.

Another thing I loved about the story was the time and setting. It takes placed just after WW2 ended. I felt so immersed with the use of slang and sayings of that time.

My least favorite thing was it felt like at times the story dragged on. I kept thinking the story was about to end, and it just kept. on. going.

The pace of What I Saw and How I Lied was overall pretty good. The story kept me wanting to read more up until the end. I like how the ended played out, I just felt there was a little too much unnecessary information.

All in all, this was a really great YA mystery. I loved the decisions Evie made and I loved the immersion with the language. I would recommend to anyone who likes YA mysteries!

Until next time…