Review: The Good Liar

**5 Stars**

This was my first read with the Traveling Sisters reading group on Goodreads, and I had a lot of fun seeing what other readers thought of the book every step of the way through it!

Cecily’s life is torn to pieces when the two people she loves – her husband, Tom, and her best friend, Kate – are killed in an assumed terrorism-related attack on their workplace. As if that wasn’t devastating enough, Cecily becomes the face of the tragedy when a photographer and documentary maker, Teo, captures Cecily fleeing the site of the explosion while attempting to visit Tom on his coffee break. The image becomes iconic and symbolic of the tragedy, something Cecily feels she will never ever be able to escape.

Cecily’s life, which includes her two teenagers, is thrust into the scrutiny of the press. She feels like she must portray the image of a grieving widow, and not anything less. But as the reader learns, nothing about Cecily’s marriage to Tom or friendship with Kate was as perfect as the media would like to believe. We learn that Tom had cheated on Cecily only a few months prior to the incident, and that Kate had mixed feelings about being a friend to Cecily, a mother to two girls, and a wife to her husband, Jack.

We also learn that Kate had a dark past no one knew about, including her husband Jack and her supposed best friend, Kate. A young woman in her 20s named Franny comes forward to the press claiming she was Kate’s daughter who Kate gave up for adoption. Franny becomes involved with the compensation process for victims and their families of the tragedy, so much so that Cecily, who is also involved with the same organization, begins to wonder if she ever really knew Kate at all.

Cecily becomes involved with Teo after the viral photograph, and agrees to be part of a documentary on the tragedy that Teo is filming. Teo decides that Franny, Kate’s family, and Cecily’s family are the foci of his documentary, and what he uncovers about all three of them will unravel everything you thought you knew about the victims and the survivors.

This book is an interesting study on how narratives of victims can get flattened in the press, and the immense pressure women feel to conform to their roles as wives, mothers, and friends. It reminded me a bit of Janelle Brown’s Watch Me Disappear.

I admit I read ahead of my reading group because 1) I am stuck at home in pain recovering from ankle surgery, and 2) this book was just that good! This is one of the heart-pounding reads that you will not be able to put down. This book will be available for purchase on April 2, 2018.

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing, Catherine McKenzie, and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of The Good Liar.