All the Best Liars by Amelia Kahaney
The tagline of All the Best Liars– ‘One will do it by dying, another by lying, a third by taking the fall’ – grabbed my attention immediately, and the book more than lived up to that initial anticipation. Best friends Syd, Rain, and Brie grew up together in the middle of the California desert, poor and desperate for a way out. All three eventually do find their way out – but not in the way they expected.
When Brie’s father starts making more money and moves them down the hill into the rich part of town, Syd and Rain feel abandoned. Brie gains a new group of friends, and Syd and Rain don’t have anything in common with them. When Rain’s mum wins the lottery at the beginning of the girls’ final year of high school, the trio struggle to keep their friendship intact amid all the changes. Rain learns there might be more to Brie’s sudden exit from their lives than they had originally thought, and Syd struggles with feeling left behind by the one person she thought would always be there.
Two weeks before the end of senior year, a fire destroys Brie’s house – with Brie inside. Rain has disappeared, leaving Syd to piece together her broken memories of the night of the fire, haunted by the thought that she and Rain might have had something to do with Brie’s death.
Told in parts by Syd, Rain and Brie, All the Best Liars is a gripping thriller full of twists and turns that will keep you up, desperate to know how it ends. I loved the way Amelia Kahaney moved around the timeline with her characters, showing not just the night of the fire and the immediate aftermath, but the days and months leading up to it as well. For ages 15+.
