A Lie For A Lie by Robin Merrow MacCready #Bookreview

Title: A Lie For A Lie
Author: Robin Merrow
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published Date: February 28th 2017 by
Genre: YA, Mystery
Page Count:208
Format: Hardcover

My Rating: ★ ★

Goodreads Summary: 
A gripping YA mystery about seventeen-year-old Kendra, an amateur photographer who discovers her father is leading a double life.

Kendra Sullivan loves taking pictures. But when a photograph reveals that her father is leading a double life, she sets out to investigate the situation. Before long, Kendra discovers her father's second family, which he has hidden for years. Kendra's knowledge soon turns into power; she is torn between exposing her father and destroying her family as she's known it, or looking deeper for the truth and suffering that outcome. This emotionally charged mystery pushes the boundaries between truth and deception, and the consequences one faces when dealing with life-changing information.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

 My Review:

"The Idea of a breakout summer was a plan.. and for me it was stepping out of my routine of anxiety whenever I was a least bit afraid."

Kendra is a young woman who has been very anxious about most things since she was in an accident as a child. This anxiety has stopped her from taking part in a lot of things, and this summer she wants to change that. With the help of her best-friend Jen she wants to push herself to do more and enjoy more of life as she is getting ready to go into senior year of high school.  

Everything seems to be going great, she is having fun going out with her friends and it seems even her crush is starting to show interest in her. 

"People say that when you have a life-altering experience, your brain takes a picture and that memory stays with you to retrieve again, and again, and again. Like an old snapshot, it's sometimes out of focus."

That is until she learns a secret about her dad, and then she starts obsessing over it and doing things that she shouldn't be doing. She has a reason to be upset at him, but then she is also going and doing what he has done as well. It  was very frustrating and something that really bothered me, but didn't seem to bother anyone else in the book. 

I had such high hopes for this book, sadly it was under developed in so many areas. It felt like too many things were being put into one book, when there just wasn't enough time to get everything in. I liked how anxiety was talked about and was the main focus until she got with her crush. Then it was all about him, and stalking her dad in order to figure out where he was going and with whom. That's when I started to lose interest in this book.

The only reason this isn't getting a one star, is because of how I did like the first 20 or so pages. If it had kept up with that, then I'm sure I would have loved it.