The Liar

Written by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

Narrated by Ajjaz Awad

This "brilliant" novel, an Elle Magazine Best Book of the Year about "lying and the lure of fame" (Joan Siber, National Book Critics Circle and PEN/Faulkner award-winning author), reveals how one mistake can have a thousand consequences.
Nofar is an average teenage girl -- so average, in fact, that she's almost invisible. Serving customers ice cream all summer long, she is desperate for some kind of escape.

One afternoon, a terrible lie slips from her tongue. And suddenly everyone wants to talk to her: the press, her schoolmates, and even the boy upstairs. He is the only one who knows the truth, and he is demanding a price for his silence.

Then Nofar meets Raymonde, an elderly immigrant whose best friend has just died. Raymonde keeps her friend alive the only way she knows how, by inhabiting her stories. But soon, Raymonde's lies take on a life of their own.

Written with propulsive energy, dark humor, and deep insight, The Liar reveals the far-reaching consequences of even our smallest choices, and explores the hidden corners of human nature to reveal the liar, and the truth-teller, in all of us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette Audio
• Release date: Sep 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781538712733

Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

Ayelet Gundar-Goshen was born in Israel in 1982. She holds an MA in Clinical Psychology from Tel Aviv University, has been a news editor on Israel's leading newspaper and has worked for the Israeli civil rights movement. Her film scripts have won prizes at international festivals, including the Berlin Today Award and the New York City Short Film Festival Award. One Night, Markovitch, her first novel, won the Sapir Prize for best debut.

Reviews for The Liar

[dwcofer_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

“Everybody Lies” could be an alternative title for this book. I am not for sure there was any character that did not lie about something. And then tell more lies to cover up the earlier lies.

I was attracted to the book as soon as I heard about it. However, the book failed to live up to my expectations. The story follows Nofar, who falsely accuses a man of sexual assault. Once she told that lie, she has to tell more and more lies to avoid the truth being revealed.

Sounds like a great concept for a book. But the book read so slowly. It was like trying to pedal a bike through mud. Almost nothing happened in the book plot wise. The book was almost entirely inner thought and musings by the characters. Even after 200 pages we were no further from the start of the book than we were on page 1. A very slow read.

The book had too many characters as well, over 50 characters. Most of the characters were minor characters who were only mentioned once and never heard from again. There was also a plot line that was totally meaningless in the book. The story of Raymonde, Rivka and Areh’le was totally irrelevant to the story of Lavi and Nofar. Their story was a total waste of time and paper.

Craft wise, there were many instances of POV shifts within the same paragraph. We would be reading about Nofar, then the author would start addressing the scene from another character’s point of view. This “head hopping” was a major distraction.

Unfortunately, the last chapter which tried to wrap up the plot lines was a disaster. We were told in a few sentences how everything turned out. It was too rushed.

With some major revision and improvement, this could have been a 5-star book. But due to the many issues mentioned above, I can only give it two stars. It does deserve two stars as it at least was interesting enough I was never tempted to DNF it.

[bibliophageoncoffee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So many interesting layers and characters, but the end felt a little rushed and slightly unsatisfying. Great read overall though. Really loved the writing.

[genieinanovel-389828 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I'm just going to start off right away that I couldn't get into this one, so I didn't finish it.  It wasn't worth trying to push through.

I read the first few chapters, but I couldn't make myself go any further.  It felt like a chore

The book does seem interesting; a 17-year-old ice cream scooper has a run-in with a disgruntled, washed-up star and allows rumors of an attempted sexual assault to bloom.  But there was just something about the story that didn't pull me in or make me care to know what happens next.

One thing that bugged me about this book was that there was little dialogue to move the story on and instead we're given summary recaps of characters that played a part in Nofar's life.  It was more telling the story than showing it in my opinion.. there was no passion in the narration.

With my new resolution to DNF books that I just can't get into, this sadly had to be the first one.

However, thanks NetGalley for letting me (try to) read an advanced copy of this book and give my honest review.