Book Review - Perfect Lies

Perfect Lies
Author: Kiersten White
Series: Mind Games #2
Genres: Paranormal, Fantasy | Young Adult
Release Date: 18th Febuary 2014
Publishers: HarperTeen
No. Pages: 458
Source: Review Copy - HarperTeen
Rating: 
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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.

The following review may contain spoilers concerning earlier books in the series.
If you have not read the previous installments, please proceed with caution.

Mind Games was the perfect example of a hyped up novel falling just a tad flat for me, while Annie and Fia was the novella that developed the main characters more than the first of two novel had attempted in 200+ pages. Perfect Lies however is the novel that took the features I enjoyed from Mind Games, the relationship between Annie and Sofia from the novella and actually created a better paced novel than it's other half. I still had issues with Perfect Lies, but I won't be leaving this series believing it was a waste of my time.

What did I struggle with most in this novel? Well, this time, it wasn't the writing style or the numerous perspectives - yes, they were still a little frustrating, but I was, by now, pretty used to the set up - and it wasn't the lack of connection or romance between James and Sofia - although that did not improve in comparison to Mind Games - no, this time, it was how the novel felt both completely different to Mind Games and the order in which things were told. Mind Games focused on the past before and after the school, where-as Perfect Lies focused on a much more recent past and present, Sofia's perspective working from within a week or so before the ending, while Annie's began where Mind Games left off. This was extremely difficult to deal with on some occasions; some characters were only explored and explained a little after I'd already met them and see them die, some characters were never explored to any great extent, while some character experienced the 'blink-and-you'll-miss-them' phenomenon which was really annoying after a while. Some of the characters continued to have hardly any, if any at all, development whatsoever and those that did, it was hardly worth mentioning in passing.

However, what Perfect Lies had that Mind Games didn't was a plot, a romance I could get on board with, more from Annie's character, more from Sofia's twisted, psychological self and few plot twists I actually didn't see coming. Everything within the rating for this novel comes from those features, especially the romance. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Sofia's and James romance wasn't good, for some people it may have floated, but personally, Annie and Cole can be adorable in my company any day. These two little love birds had a beautiful connection; they cared for one another in two entirely different ways, Annie's connection to Cole grew from understanding him without how he looked and falling for his personality and honesty, where-as Cole fell for Annie's eagerness to protect and be useful, her passion and her humour, and this is the kind of romance I thoroughly enjoy. None of that insta-love or insta-crush, or 'she's the most beautiful girl in the room' smush, no, this was honest, passionate and adorable in every way possible. Sofia's character too in Perfect Lies went through a few changes but most of all, I just enjoyed being in her mind when she had her, I'm going to call them phases - how she would zone out, develop and shut herself off the world, her emotions, her thoughts - I genuinely thought it was brilliant and think Keirstan White really did a fantastic job in getting this point across. Plot was a little, drier and predictable, but it was actually nice to have a plot that moved in Perfect Lies rather than an info dumpy, slow and uninteresting background history in Mind Games, and all of these changes complimented something that was in both Mind Games and Perfect Lies that made it feel as though I was reading so quickly, even if I wasn't enjoying them hugely. I can't place what exactly it is, but I felt as though these were some of the quickest novels I've ever read, and if really did help when I consider that they weren't mind-blowing reads.

Mind Games wasn't a duology I found enjoyable. Many of the characters weren't developed enough for me thanks to the size of the novels, the plot felt unfinished, slow and failed to keep me interested, but the physiological aspects of Sofia, the romance between Annie and Cole and that little something in the writing made what could have been a terrible sequel an okay read, and I don't regret trying the series whatsoever.