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Read Between the Lies by Jesse Q. Sutanto

​“Fern Huang is finally going to achieve her dream of being a published author. She's worked hard to heal from the traumatic bullying she endured at the hands of Haven Lee in high school, a girl who swooped in and stole Fern's best friend, Dani and made Fern's life miserable. She also blames Haven for Dani's suicide, something that's affected Fern deeply. When she joins a debut authors group on Facebook/Slack and finds out that Haven also has a book debuting, her whole world comes crashing down. Add the COVID pandemic and the whole nation going on lockdown to the mix and Fern's obsession with Haven takes on stalkerish, unhealthy and frankly disturbing proportions. The message that no one is truly innocent, that we all have secrets and also, be very careful what you post on Social Media, since you never know how your words might be used against you were all true but in the end, the characters were obnoxious, the constant posts of, "OMG, srsly, whaaat, nooo, I knoooow, uuuuugh" and Fern's inability to grow up and move on had me almost DNFing this book on mutliple occasions."   

⭐️⭐️

Pros: It was a quick read since most of it was formatted as social media posts. 

Cons: The constant “OMG, WTF, Ughhhh” ad nauseum internet lingo was obnoxious/Fern wasn’t innocent and she always glossed over that fact. She was constantly the victim but she had done cruel things as well/Dani's death and the events leading up to it were all rather rushed, ubelievable and the whole book was just kind of infuriating.  

Full Review: 

Fern Huang has spent most of her adult life in New York City, trying to heal from the traumatic bullying she experienced through Middle/High School at the hands of Haven Lee. It all started when Haven moved to town and started school in the middle of the year. She was quickly the social queen and became friends with Dani, Fern's only friend and her best friend at that. Fern's jealousy of Haven quickly turns to hatred as Haven seems to take personal enjoyment in making Fern's life miserable. She's soon turned everyone in school against Fern, labeling her as a freak and doing constant, humiliating things to her. 

That was more than ten years ago and Fern has worked hard to re-create her life and convince herself that she's a good person. She works for a domineering wedding photographer but her real passion is writing. And through hard work and determination, she has a literary agent and has landed a publishing deal. 

When she joins a debut authors group on Facebook/Slack (a group of authors whose books will debut in the same year) she's overjoyed to find others whom she can connect with and who seem to understand her. But, it all comes crashing down when none other than Haven Lee joins the group and her debut novel has all the workings of being a world wide best seller. 

Of course, nothing is as it seems, no one ever tells the truth and there are lies within lies and secrets within secrets and no one's hands are clean, including Fern. She plays the victim card to the Nth degree, to an obnoxious level but she's no saint. She did something to Haven that was just as cruel because she was jealous that Dani and Haven had hung out without her. She pitched a hissy fit because how dare others hang out without her, it was ridiculously childish and pathetic. And yet through the whole story, even to the very end, Fern is always the victim, never the bad guy. It was infuriating because Fern was never completely honest, ever. 

I finished this book just to get the AAPI badge on Goodreads. I read it quickly because most of it was formatted as Social Media/Facebook/Twitter posts, so there were a lot of paragraph breaks etc. But the characters of Fern and Haven were both obnoxious. Fern always, always, always played the victim but she's not perfect or innocent, she's done things that are not kind, even though she claims to be a good person. 

Though it had a good message of no one is completely innocent, we've all done bad things and have secrets, and also to be very, very careful what you post on Social Media because you never know how it might come back to haunt you, overall, this book was extremely irrirating and I almost DNFed it multiple times. 

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