There will be lies by Nick Lake
Bloomsbury, 2014. ISBN 9781408856000
(Age 14+) Highly recommended. Thriller. Magic realism. Road trip.
Shelby Jane Cooper is almost 18. She lives at home with her mother
who has home-schooled her. Her days are highly organised by her
mother who is totally preoccupied with keeping her safe, away from
the world and especially men. When she is hit by a car and has to go
to hospital with a broken leg, secrets that her mother has been
keeping begin to unravel and they run away from the old life that
they had. Only her mother seems to know just what they are running
from and Shelby doesn't know what to believe. Her only friend seems
to be a coyote and she starts to slip in and out of her world, not
knowing what the truth is and what is a lie.
I found this to be a gripping thriller that I couldn't put down. The
character of Shelby was awesome and her first person narration as
she describes what happens kept me on the edge of my seat, even
though I knew that I couldn't rely on it. She is a clever girl whose
intelligence shines through her comments even when she is
exaggerating and touches of humour lighten the mood, especially her
cynicism about how her deafness is viewed. She freely admits that
she knows nothing about Native American folklore and the reader
knows that what she describes as she follows Coyote into an
alternative universe may not be what Native Americans believe. Her
alternate dream state provides a secondary story about killing the
mythical Crone and rescuing the weeping Child that is as gripping as
the road trip that she and her mother take to evade anyone
following.
Nick Lake is an award winning author of the Michael J Printz Award
2013 for In
darkness and his mastery of language is evident in
his world and character building. He is able to keep up the
riveting suspense by often leaving the reader on a cliffhanger at
the end of a chapter, which ensures that the next page is read just
to find out what is going to happen. He gives a brief introduction
to the book on YouTube.
Readers who enjoy thrillers will love this story and it could
provoke a lot of discussion in literature circles, in particular
about the use of Native American mythology by an author who has no
background in this area. (See a
review from Debbie Reese at the American Indians in Children's
Literature website, which is highly critical of this aspect.)
Pat Pledger