Title: Truth or Dare
Series: (Truth or Dare, #1)
Author: Jacqueline Green
Category: Young Adult
When a simple round of truth or dare spins out of control, three girls find it’s no longer a party game. It’s do or die.
It all started on a whim: the game was a way for Tenley Reed to reclaim her popularity, a chance for perfect Caitlin “Angel” Thomas to prove she’s more than her Harvard application. Loner Sydney Morgan wasn’t even there; she was hiding behind her camera like usual. But when all three start receiving mysterious dares long after the party has ended, they’re forced to play along—or risk exposing their darkest secrets.
How far will Tenley, Caitlin and Sydney go to keep the truth from surfacing? And who’s behind this twisted game?
Set against the backdrop of Echo Bay, an isolated beach town haunted by misfortune, Truth or Dare is a highly charged debut that will keep readers in suspense from beginning to end.
MY REVIEW
Imagine if someone knew all of your darkest secrets. And intended to use them against you, provided you do not do everything that person tells you to, including betraying your own friends.
When I first read the synopsis, I was so excited, because it was like Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars all over again. Trust no one. Even the people you think you know so well can be strangers. However, despite how awesome this came across to someone who loves GG and PLL and backstabbing drama (only in books!), my initial excitement to find a new series cataloging a vicious game of truth or dare quickly fell short when I discovered that this book was 99 percent slow-paced teen drama chock full of whining and moaning and characters talking about how attractive they are and blah-blah-blah.
Our blackmail victims come together in the eerie town of Echo Bay, where everyone knows everyone. Not to mention the curse of the Lost Girls – the story of three beautiful, wealthy girls in the prime of their life, each mysteriously dying in the ocean during Echo Bay’s fall festival just years earlier, before the town had elected to cancel the festival. With this years first fall festival since the events that led to the curse, everyone in Echo Bay is wondering if the ocean will claim yet another life, a fourth Lost Girl.
Every single one of the characters is, at some point, a suspect. However, during the shocking big reveal of who is blackmailing these girls – gasp! – once again falls short. Truth or Dare could’ve been thrilling and easily became a new guilty pleasure, but alas, it was remarkably dull. Oh, we get it. Sydney wants Guinness. Tenley wants Guinness. Caitlin wants to be perfect at everything. Boring. None of the girls being blackmailed spent much time worrying about it – not about some stalker out there following them around, sending them creepy notes. Instead, the group worries about everything but, like, oh, what to wear to seduce Guinness! And moaning about not being perfect!
And of course, the last twenty pages finally pick up, only to be left with a cliffhanger and barely any answers. And then the remaining girls went right back to being their obnoxious, underdeveloped selves, never mind that two people supposedly lost their lives.
Perhaps the next installments will be more thrilling and develop the characters more, but I don’t think I’ll be sticking around to read them.
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