The moment I learned a new Jennifer Lynn Barnes book was being published this year, I knew I had to read it right away! I absolutely love Jennifer’s books and the synopsis for this one sounded wonderful. My audiobook subscription service had this one available the day it released, so I started listening to Little White Lies immediately. And today I’ll tell you all about it!
Sawyer Taft lives together with her mom, and mostly takes care of her as well. When her mom is off with a new boyfriend again, her grandmother shows up and offers her a six figure contract to participate in debutante season. Sawyer has her own reasons to agree to this , for example finding out who knocked up her mother when she was only 17.
Cover
This cover isn’t super pretty or special or anything but I do like it. I love the colors used and think the lettering is very well done. The flowers look nice and fit the theme quite well. All in all a bit of a forgettable but still pretty cover.
Plot
I highly enjoyed this novel! It is exactly what it is promoted to be, a cross between Gilmore Girls and Gossip Girl. You can clearly see the parallels between these two wonderful shows and this book. I really enjoyed reading about the debutante world and Sawyer’s discovery of this life was great to follow. It is a very quick read, as you just want to keep on going and going.
It takes a little while to find out what the book is about precisely. When going in to the story there seems to be 1 mystery (as you can gather from the synopsis) but it turns out there are actually two mysteries. After a while I had some guesses about one of the mysteries and the reveal wasn’t as wonderful as the Naturals plot twists. However, all isn’t resolved as easily as it seems and that is nice in a mystery.
The narrative goes back and forth between the current time and flashbacks to everything leading up to this moment. I loved the little looks at the current time line and the connections you can make to the rest of the story at that moment. Those timelines were very much in sync and it gave the story a little something extra.
I was expecting a lot of bitchy and backstabbing girls but it turns out Little White Lies features some amazing female friendships. That was not something I was expecting at all in this setting and I was so wrong. I love the friendships and the lack of focus on romantic relationships. That is so refreshing in YA and something we could use more of.
I laughed out loud and snorted so much while listening to this audiobook. The narration was very well done and I loved the Southern accent. I think this story would make such a funny tv show of movie!
“I’m not saying this is Sawyer’s fault,” the prim and proper one said delicately. “But.”
Characters
Sawyer is the main character and she is great to read about. She hasn’t grown up in the debutante world and as I said, I loved her discovery of it all. Sawyer has such a good heart and I loved her interactions with her cousin Lily. She was funny and snarky and was very well matched with her grandmother.
There is a nice cast of secondary characters; Lily, Sawyer’s cousin, Sadie Grace, Lily’s best friend, Walker, Lily’s ex, Campbell, Walker’s brother, Boone, Nick and the rest of the Taft family. They all have their own little mysteries and scandals going on and it was fun to figure it all out. I do think these characters could be fleshed out more and I hope we’ll get that in the second book.
All in all this was a solid 4,5 star read for me! I laughed out loud a lot and couldn’t stop listening to the audiobook. Jennifer Lynn Barnes is one of my all time favorite YA authors and I will read anything she writes. I would highly recommend this to fans of Gilmore Girls, Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars!
Have you read any of Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ books? What is your favorite? And do you plan on reading Little White Lies? Let me know in the comments!