If I Lie by Corinne Jackson

Book: If I Lie 

Author: Corinne Jackson

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Sometimes, you read a book that makes you, I suppose...grateful that you grew up the way you did. Ireland has a proud military history, but our army are peacekeepers who haven't actively fought overseas since WW2. They do amazing humanitarian work, bit the military is not as all-encompassing a presence here as it is in the South Carolina town where If I Lie is set.  And, trust me, that factoid is going to be way important.

Sophie Quinn, the narrator, is a military daughter, niece and girlfriend. She lives in a tiny town where the majority of high school graduates enlist in the armed forces before the ink is fully dry on their diplomas. Her boyfriend Carey has been deployed on his first tour of the Middle East and he's asked her to keep a devastating secret for him while he's gone: Carey is gay. Confused and hurt, Sophie seeks comfort in the arms of Blake, Carey's oldest friend. But when photos of the two in a compromising position end up on Facebook, Sophie becomes a virtual outcast. Unable to explain her actions without revealing Carey's secret, Sophie is left to face her senior year with no support, under the fierce scrutiny of her cold and judgmental father. But then Carey goes missing, presumed dead, and Sophie knows that, as the hatred around her escalates, that she is going to have to make some really tough decisions for the sake of her own happiness.

This is a really fantastic book. Sophie absolutely shines as a narrator; despite the utterly crappy situations she's wound up in, she manages to stay perky and snarky and funny. She also unfalteringly keeps Carey's secret, despite the torrent of abuse she receives from her former friends and even the teachers at her school. She knows the alternative; if she reveals Carey's secret, he will never be looked at the same way again. I can't imagine what that must be like, to grow up in a town so stifled that turning poor Sophie into a modern Hester Prynne is preferable to telling the truth. Some parts of the book made me so mad; Sophie was doing this really noble thing and all she got was abuse from all angles. God, I wanted to tell everyone about Carey, just to make them leave poor Sophie alone! The townspeople all made Carey out to be some poor suffering martyr, even though he's left Sophie in an impossible situation; she can't tell his secret, because he's still her best friend and she loves him too much.

There are some good points though, in spite of all the bitchy cheerleaders who scrawled messages on Sophie's locker or shoved her over in the hall. You've got the supporting characters for one. Even the ones you'd describe as flawed, like Sophie's dad, are really well written and well rounded. Blake, the boy Sophie supposedly cheated with, is stoic yet oh-so-sexy.And then there's George, the veteran that Sophie befriends at the local military hospital. He was great; sweet with just the right about of crabby (all old men should be just a little crabby!).

This is a great book; I highly recommend it.