The Color of Lies

Author: CJ Lyons

Publisher: Blink YA Books

Release Date: November 6, 2018

Rating: 5 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

A great YA thriller with heart!

Ella Cleary has never been like everyone else. She has grown up with a special medical condition called synesthesia, a scrambling of the senses that gives Ella the ability to see colors that show people’s true emotions. Others have it affect other senses. This ability has always helped her when judging and reacting to others until she meets a guy she can’t read. Alec comes into her life unexpectedly and drops a bombshell in her lap telling her the truth about her parents’ deaths. She had always thought they died in an accidental fire, but it turns out it was no accident at all and the real truth of what happened has never been discovered. Finding out this truth makes Ella wonder whom she can trust and if everything she has believed has been a lie. The only way that Ella can discover the truth about her past and what really happened to her parents is to find a killer.

The Color of Lies is such a new and unique book to me that I couldn’t put it down.  I loved the characters and the story arc. Ella and Alec have a great chemistry that leads the story down just the right path.  There is a little bit of back and forth in the story between the present time and what happened over a decade ago to Ella’s parents. Also, readers need to be aware of the flipping of point of views between Ella and Alec, they are at the top of each chapter to distinguish who’s point of view it is in so that greatly helps. For readers who have trouble following the switch, they may want to pay extra attention to follow along. For me this was a great way to move the story along and give the readers the most information to be fully involved in the story. One thing that surprised me was the fact that this book has much more prose than dialogue, something that usually slows a story down for me, not here, I was too intrigued with what was going to happen and didn’t really need the dialogue to speed things along. All of the supporting characters were significant to the story and added to it without taking away from the main characters and what they were trying to accomplish. Overall I would say this was a very enjoyable read and will recommend to both YA and adult readers who love a good mystery.

I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.