Had to read this one since it's by a fellow Alpha Gam, I enjoyed it but it wasn't as shocking as say a Gillian flynn, still a pretty well put together mystery ( )

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book.

I may be one of the few left in the USA who hasn't listened to a podcast before! That, in itself, was an interesting twist for me in this great suspense novel.

Josie and Lanie are twins, a good-and-evil combination of sorts...or is it? The author weaves you through an interesting family past that these women have lived through, a great example of how our past shapes who we become.

I'd always wanted a sister and thought it would be so cool to be a twin. I'm rethinking that after reading this story! (j/k) Lanie has many layers that are revealed little by little, keeping us in suspense as to what really happened years ago.

Josie has her own secrets she's keeping, and you find yourself not trusting any character - which makes it a good thriller/suspense. The whole podcast view was a good reminder of how often people find their personal grief in the spotlight for all to judge. It makes you realize how much we've invaded each other's lives through social media and news and what an awful effect it has on those in their personal grief-made-public. ( )

This was fine. This was solid. This was unexceptional, but enjoyable.
 
If there had been more backstory to this, it might have been more captivating. I felt like the characters were pretty bland and needed some salt. Josie especially. She's gone and changed her name, completely reinvented herself. I want to know how this went about. I want to see her changing and know if that was hard for her. But we're kind of just thrown in the middle of things. I never quite understood why she couldn't forgive or at least talk to her sister.
 
I also felt like the women were angsty all the time and completely fell into a trope of being unstable. Her boyfriend, Caleb, could have made them angsty and could have caused a lot of conflict, but he and Josie just travel places and sometimes raise their voices a little but for the most part, skate by without the realistic drama I wanted to read about.
 
However, despite my issues with characterization, this was a pretty easy read and I enjoyed it all the way through. The podcasts were a lot of fun--I understand why so many people across the nation were captivated by them and drawn in.
 
There was a lot of telling to this story and I never quite felt very actively involved, which is a shame, because the plot was interesting enough and there was a pretty big mystery that should have had me flipping pages furiously.
 
If you're looking for a solid okay, this has a cool premise. If you want extraordinary characters, go somewhere else.
 
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. ( )

First, this was renamed and got a new cover and is now called Truth Be Told. Second, it is now a show on Apple TV, which I have not seen, so it has a third cover. None of those were good signs to me and I went in hesitantly. The premise is great- a Serial type podcast relooks are a murder where there is a cult, love stolen, murder, and tons of secrets. The problem was it was a chore to get to the good stuff that I didn’t care when it arrived. Meh ( )

Entertaining overall, but as a podcast listener I thought they did the host dirty to make her out to be some opportunistic bitch, when most podcast journalist are lovely & genuinely concerned. Also the whole mystery kind of lacked buildup and was just a information dump at the end. ( )