Lying Out Loud

Lying Out Loud is a YA contemporary novel and a companion to The Duff by Kody Keplinger.

I have not read The Duff and was able to enjoy Lying Out Loud as it focuses on different characters. It does, however, glimpse into where the characters of The Duff are now – so reading The Duff first would probably be most rewarding. No spoilers in this review, though!

Sonny Ardmore has become an excellent liar.

From why she’s late to work and school to where her father is – to why she needs to stay at her best friend Amy’s house every night.

Sometimes it almost seems like lying is second nature to her at this point.

Amy may be the only person who sees through her lies and knows the truth – yet even that is beginning to get foggy. There are some things Sonny does not want to share even with her…

Then enters new guy at school: Ryder. Constantly whining about how his pretentious school in D.C. is better than their small-town education and being essentially impossible to befriend – his ridiculous crush on Amy makes both the girls cringe.

But when one night Sonny is using Amy’s laptop and ends up having an implausibly enjoyable online conversation with Ryder – she does not realize until the end that he thought he was talking to Amy the whole time.

Now she might actually like Ryder – but he thinks he’s making a connection with Amy.

Being a master of lies, Sonny comes up with a plan to fix everything – but will her plan, soaked in more lies, just make things worse?

Wow – I have to say that I did not expect Lying Out Loud to be as fantastic as it was. But it was! Fantastic, that is.

With modern narration from our protagonist Sonny, we get an opportunity to see behind the lies as well as peek into the lies she tells herself also.

Kody Keplinger has penned a novel that can be funny, painful and oh-so-realistic. This is a girl who makes some very, very poor decisions – yet even as I knew everything would have to eventually fall to pieces, I felt for her deeply.

It’s heartbreaking and anguishing from the family difficulties and disappointments, destruction of close friendship and desperate attempts to create and hold onto first love.

Truly, I raced through Lying Out Loud – enamored with the characters that are lovable and likable. I had to know what would happen next – and was scared of how sad the end would be.

You won’t hear from me how it all turns out, though. You’ll have to suffer to the end, spoiler-free, like I did and find out yourself!

And… wow. I literally had misty eyes a few times during Lying Out Loud.

I officially want to read The Duff now!