Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I am getting into one of the year’s (thus far I should say) most popular thrilling releases Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera. I heard a lot about this book when it was released in March and like with most books I am generally not reading it at the time of release, so it’s nice to get into it now that the hype has died down a little. That being said though I can definitely see why Listen for the Lie has been so popular since it dropped I definitely could not put it down once I started.

Main Characters:

• Lucy: Had to start a new life after she was accused of killing her best friend the charges were eventually dropped in the courts but not in the minds of the people in her town comes back home after a podcaster named Ben starts a podcast on her best friend Savvy’s case turning the new world upside down, is forced to face everything from the past she has been hiding from to find out who killed Savvy
• Ben: A true crime podcaster who is known for taking cold cases and cracking them, takes on the cold case of Savvy’s murder and creates and friendship with Lucy’s grandmother to try and get her on his side, doesn’t seem to have a idea on who killed Savvy and just seems to want to find the truth
• Savvy: Met Lucy when they were younger and the two meshed well together due to both being strong opinionated women, their home town is rocked by Savvy’s death and instantly turns on Lucy because of it, turns out that Savvy may not have been exactly as everyone thought she was

My Review

As mentioned before Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera has been flying off the shelves since its release. With Lisa Jewell’s None of This is True being a hit last year it’s not a surprise really that Listen for the Lie has been received so well. It seems like books surrounding podcasts are doing well and it’s really no surprise because it does bring this really interesting element into the book. Listen for the Lie is a combination of different character perspectives told through Ben’s true crime podcast and a direct perspective from Lucy as well. Together it creates this thrilling mystery in which we follow along with the different characters as they try to piece together what happened to Savvy that frightening night all those years ago. I don’t want to get too much into the details of the book because it’s still a pretty recent release, and I definitely have to be careful with what I say about this book because too much definitely spoils it all. I would say with the twists in the book I totally didn’t see them coming at all and when it comes to what happened to Savvy I had a totally different idea in my head as to what it would be then it was.

I landed on giving Listen to the Lie by Amy Tintera an 8.5/10 rating. I found it to be just a super well-rounded book with suspicious characters but others that are seemingly trustworthy. The plot while openly kind of seems mundane is spun into this crazy story in which an old friend is forced to try to think back to the night that changed everything for her. I thought the podcast element added this really interesting piece into the story in which we are getting all these opinions and stories from people who knew Lucy and Savvy, but like with anything else we can’t really tell who we can trust and who we cannot. I mean it’s pretty clear throughout the book that some people have some things to hide, but it’s hard to tell if it’s just something stupid that they did in their own lives, or something to do with Savvy’s death. There are a lot of characters in this book but it’s not super hard to keep up with who’s who, and I personally didn’t find myself getting lost at all.

Listen to the Lie follows Lucy as her past comes roaring back into her life in a destructive way. After attending a friend’s wedding one night with their respective partner’s best friend Savvy and Lucy’s lives changed forever. After waking up in the hospital Lucy is told that she was found wandering in the woods covered in blood, Savvy’s blood, who was found dead in the woods. Police are uncertain of what happened and are looking to Lucy to fill in the dots, however, she can’t because she has no recollection of what happened that night. Seemingly convenient to the police they soon turn the investigation around on her. Lucy has the charges against her dropped due to lack of evidence, yet the people in their hometown have now formed their own judgements. Lucy never plans to return back home given that even her own husband and parents believe she killed Savvy, but is called back when the past makes its way through again. When popular true crime podcaster Ben gets on Savvy’s case, Lucy’s small-time history is making big news. Determined to find out what really happened, no matter what it means for herself, Lucy steps back into the place that judges her every move to try and find out what really happened. Everyone in Lucy and Savvy’s life gets to say their piece, and it’s up to the reader to try and conclude if Lucy really did it like everyone thinks or if it was someone else all along.

I thought Lucy was a really interesting main character. She’s very blunt and to the point, and doesn’t seem to care what other people around her think of her. She knows her past and what people think of her and there is just this strength to her where she seems to know her own truth and doesn’t try to let the judgement of others get to her. I would definitely argue that it’s a protective measure that she gives to herself to hide from the pain of her loss and the way that she wasn’t fully allowed to grieve due to being placed as prime suspect in her best friend’s death. There is this aspect to Lucy as a character where she has this voice in her head that seems to lust for killing. It’s an interesting fact about her because as the reader we are forced to question how long this voice has been around, and if she has ever listened to it. It also calls into question how much we can trust her perspective as our main narrator, and if her lack of memory is true or is to hide this voice she has within her. It just makes it so you never really know who to trust throughout this book. Ben remains a fairly neutral character but it’s clear that he gets pulled in too much into this case and will stop at nothing to try and find the real answers.

Overall a super fun and thrilling read. I would definitely recommend picking Listen for the Lie up at your bookstore as it’s such a great summer read to get into. It’s not a long book and the pace and the way the different twists are displayed throughout the book keep you pulled in the entire time. While a lot of the characters are hard to trust they are dynamic and hard to not want to follow as the story goes on even if their narrative may be a bit sketchy.

Have you read Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera? What did you think?

Thank you for checking out this review! I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to follow me on my socials @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I release a new review!