Let's Bust a Recap : Lie Until It's True

Jessie Weaver's sophomore novel is out! I knew after reading Live Your Best Lie last year that I'd definitely read anything else Jessie had to offer so I went ahead and preordered Lie Until It's True and then read it immediately after it showed up at my door last month. 

Lie Until It's True zooms in on one of the secondary characters from Weaver's debut novel Live Your Best Lie, but this young adult murder mystery is not a sequel. In this one, we learn that the last three years of sixteen year old Amanda Pruitt's life have been consumed with a murder trial and she is more than ready to move on from it. She ends up spending the summer with her aunt who works at a historic (haunted?) hotel in Colorado. Her childhood best friend's mother has been accused of murder in what seems like an open-and-shut case, but Amanda is hoping to spark a deeper investigation into what happened using her popular true crime TikTok account. But when someone else turns up dead, Amanda finds herself a prime suspect and right in the middle of another horrible murder investigation. 

First of all, if you're going to read Jessie's books, I'd say read them in order. As I mentioned, Lie Until It's True isn't a sequel but it does take place after the events in Live Your Best Lie and if you read it first, you will be able to eliminate a suspect from her first book. 

Secondly, I'd say I liked Jessie's debut better than Lie Until It's True, but this new release is highly readable and the murder mystery aspect kept me guessing again. I liked the romance element in this one, the ghost story component was fun, and the entire novel had a very summer camp vibe that I liked a lot. I thought wrapping the book up with an Ask Me Anything section was a clever way to tie up some lingering questions given the way social media features in the book. But my main complaint from Live Your Best Lie—the rude language and casual misuse of God's name—seemed even more pervasive in Lie Until It's True, and I got tired of it quickly. 

All things considered though, I'm still a fan and definitely looking forward to what Jessie puts out next. While I, once again, might hesitate to hand this book to actual teenagers without caveat-ing, I would conditionally recommend it. And because of the contrasting haunted hotel/summer camp themes, Lie Until It's True is a good read year-round for all you mood readers out there. 

Who's your favorite murder mystery author?