Book Review: "Don't Lie" by Sarah Jules

Yes, we're back to reading Sarah Jules. The author of books like You Need to Leave and You Invited It In, Sarah Jules is one of the most promising voices in contemporary horror. Whilst using some old tropes which leave us recognising our favourite genre within, Sarah Jules likes to make original storylines where we can see inspiration from other novels and films. She shows her knowledge when it comes to horror and her brilliant ability to balance atmosphere with story with dialogue. Honestly, I'm not expecting any less for Don't Lie as I've already been told that if I loved Found You then, I'm in for a 'wild ride' when it comes to this novel...

Initially the book starts off with characters that we couldn’t care less about. There’s the dumb-blonde archetype, Katie. There’s the ‘quirky but not cool’ ‘friend’ - Quinn. There’s the character whom most of us imagine probably looks like JD from ‘Thelma and Louise’ (and has about the same lukewarm IQ) named Ellis. There’s the character that not many people care about - Xander. And of course, the obligatory minority so that they can die first - Jude. The beginning of the book definitely had me thinking if this was the same author who gave us such incredible contemporary horror as ‘You Invited it In’ but, though it was a bit misaligned to begin with, it eventually found its way.

The story is basically that these ‘friends’ live in a ‘cabin’ and they have a great plan to scare Quinn absolutely shitless. She is the target of much abuse, vitriol and of course, bullying. Why? Well, she’s not as pretty as Katie and yet, she is dating Katie’s ex-boyfriend, Ellis. I’m not going to lie, but I got so tired of these characters that by about halfway in, I didn’t care who died. These characters aren’t like the characters of other books by this author. Previously, we’ve had children we care about - one child lost his mother (and then his father), we have had Savannah of ‘Found You’ - a down-on-her-luck woman who feels like a failure with nobody around to help her. Now I feel like we have the equivalent of a bad episode of ‘Friends’ (and that show was pretty bad anyway).

The shifting perspectives was definitely a good idea because it did leave us guessing about some characters and sorry if I mentioned that spoiler about Jude, but that’s just the way it goes - the minority always dies first. I was quite surprised at the fact that the author waited quite a long time before introducing us to what the actual horror of the novel was. But to be honest, it wasn’t necessarily that frightening at all. The ending seemed to have been thrown together from bits and pieces mentioned in passing through the book and I’m not sure I enjoyed it as much as the other novels by this writer.

Everyone was a stock character and that being said, Jude was still my favourite. He seemed like the only character who actually had a fully formed personality whereas all of the others were half-people. What we have is a bunch of entitled university students who definitely all get what’s coming to them and since there’s no real hook character, I found myself just hoping the book would end in tragedy. That is something the reader might expect, but shouldn’t really want to happen. The whole thing felt like a bit of a fumble if I’m being honest.

Sarah Jules doesn’t want to create too much atmosphere in this book and it’s clear that she isn’t looking to make us scared either. For example: though it is marketed as a horror, I definitely would not call it a horror. It is more like one of those college thrillers that you see occasionally on the ‘Hello Sunshine’ book club - especially during the spooky season.

All in all, though the premise did draw me in, so much of this book doesn’t feel like it lived up to any of the other books the author has written. It left me quite disappointed. But I still hold out hope for the author, at the moment it's pretty good odds...