Truth or Dare Review

TITLE Truth or Dare (Truth or Dare #1)
AUTHOR Jacqueline Green
PUBLICATION May 14th 2013 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
READ April 28 to 30, 2013
SOURCE From Hachette Book Group Canada for review

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.

Why is everything a series these days? When I first started TRUTH OR DARE I was really into it. It had a strong Pretty Little Liars vibe and I was thoroughly enjoying the mystery but as I got farther in it began to feel dragged out and far too long. Clocking in at 416 pages this is a pretty hefty book. Had the plot packed more of a punch I would have had no problem with that but around the 30% mark I started checking the page numbers way too often and finding myself wanting to stop reading after each chapter.

The story is told in the third person with the POV alternating each chapter. We get to be 3 different high school girls Tenley, Caitlin, & Sydney and I have to say that not one of them came to be someone that I really connected with. I had a strong feeling of being an outsider as all of this was going on so I never got as wrapped up in the story as I would have liked. Tenley was probably the worst of the bunch, she had just moved back to the small town of Echo Bay from Nevada and was doing anything she could to get her title as Queen Bee back. She was full of selfish, vain thoughts and beyond that she didn’t really have any substance. Caitlin was the smarty pants of the bunch, running for class president and getting her extracurriculars under her belt for Harvard. Syndney took the role of artsy photographer so we had 3 very different girls who were thrown together because each of them was getting these dares. I felt like more of the mystery in this one was finding out the girls’ pasts instead of finding out who the darer was. Much time is spent talking of Sydney’s time in an institution, how Caitlin was kidnapped when she was younger and Tenley’s “enhancements.” Those histories slowly came to light as the story wore on but it wasn’t enough to keep me sucked in.

I had high hopes when I went into this one that I was going to get a full story but sadly, because this is a series, we are left hanging. Had the story kept me much more attentive I don’t think I would have taken too much issue with that but I spent much of the novel bored and waiting for the dares to actually go somewhere and reveal something. There are a bunch of tiny threads that are wound up throughout the story and we do get some minor reveals as the story goes on but it just wasn’t enough for the amount of story here. As I said before I always felt like an outsider watching a movie here, I never got sucked in so I never became invested in any of the friendships or romantic relationships either. I wanted so badly to root for Guiness and Sydney but I just never got a real sense of either character, especially Guiness, so even that fell short for me.

If you’re looking for a very one dimensional mystery series to get started on then this one could be for you but if you are looking for great character development and relationships I would say lower you expectations. In the end I don’t think I care enough to continue on with the series and see how everything wraps up which is weird because I am super nosey and normally can’t stop until I know everything, I guess that can attest to how much I didn’t like the novel?