Little Red Lies

By Julie Johnston

     The war is over, but for thirteen-year-old Rachel, the battle has just begun. Putting childhood behind her, she knows what she wants - to prove she has acting talent worthy of the school drama club, and what she doesn't want - to romantically fall for someone completely inappropriate. Worries about her veteran brother's failing health and repugnance at her mother's unexpected and unwanted pregnancy drive her to seek solace from a seemingly sympathetic, but self-serving teacher. The lies she tells herself hoping to reach solutions to the problems complicating her life merely function to make matters worse. Ultimately, she finds a way to come to terms with life as it reaches an end and life as it begins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781770493148

Reviews for Little Red Lies

[sdbookhound · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Little Red Lies started out ok for me. I was interested in the characters and wanted to know more about them. I am interested in the time period that this novel takes place, but some things just didn't seem right to me. Some of the language didn't seem true to the time period to me. As I continued into the book, I became annoyed with the character of Rachel. I could appreciate that she was at a difficult time in her life, but could find little to redeem her character in my eyes. I wanted to like this book, but it just got harder to read as I went on and I had to resort to skimming to get through it. I appreciate the opportunity I had through Library Thing Early Reviewers to read this book, but I would have a hard time recommending it.

[meggyweg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

(I got this book for free from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program in exchange for this review.)This book isn't as good as I hoped it would be. The protagonist had an authentic early-teen voice and sensibilities, and her family sounds like it could have been a real family, but I wish there had been more about the mid-1940s Canadian setting. I actually tended to forget the era in which it was taking place. There's also a LOT going on in this book, probably too much: Rachel's brother Jamie comes home from World War II with PTSD and, it turns out, leukemia (which was usually fatal in those days), their mother is expecting a baby, Rachel dreams of an acting career but comes to realize she doesn't have the talent for it, she's dealing with a super-creepy teacher at school who has "pedophile" written all over him, etc etc etc. That said, I think the book is worth a read, and might be of particular interest to YAs struggling with illness in their families.

[hiddenparagon · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a really great written coming-of-age YA novel. Although it is set post-WWII, the plot and situations of the characters are in many ways still relevant today and very relatable. His illness aside, many of the emotional aspects of Jaimie's readjustment to civilian life are not unlike those faced by vets coming home from the Middle East today.

[lauraenos · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great coming-of-age young adult novel. Rachel, fifteen, helpless romantic, slightly immature and imaginative, is making sense of her changed older brother James after he returns from fighting in a World War II. The family, including Granny, all have their own distinct personalities. Johnston does a nice job of portraying the time period rather accurately in the schools, homes, and community. Set in Canada, this was a very real and loving story about how families coped during this time period.

[paperbackpropensity · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"On my tombstone, they will engrave 'Rachel Liar McLaren. She meant well, but she had no backbone' "I picked Little Red Lies because the summary of a young girl growing up and dealing with her brother's changes after the war sounded interesting to me. I hadn't expected it to be subtle, charming and endearing. But that's exactly what I found it to be. It is a story of family, relationships, connection, and most of all, growing up, and being human. The main character, Rachel McLaren is an imaginative, somewhat dramatic girl with just a little bit of spunk. As a reader, you care for her. If you are close to her age, you want to be her best friend. If you are older than her, you want to take her under your wing; she feels like a little sister who has some growing up to do, but you know that when she does, she will become a remarkable woman. She has some troubles with reality at first, but she always means well. Author Julie Johnston tells this story with subtlety, really showing the reader the personality of Rachel, her brother, and her parents. There is no need to have things spelled out in the book. It ends like a fading breeze, rather than as a big bang, leaving conclusions that go without saying. Little Red Lies feels like a companion. It won't give you an epiphany, but it will stay with you. Rachel McLaren will live on in my heart.

[mamzel_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Canadian writer, Julie Johnston, gives us a story about the effect of a distant war on a typical family. 13-year old Rachel's brother Jamie, returns from war withdrawn and unwilling to speak about his experiences. The family tries all they can to make things return to 'normal' but it is difficult. Rachel flirts with danger, literally, when a handsome substitute teacher tries to help her. The title refers to the color of a bright red lipstick that she tries to wear but her mother takes it away from her. It represents her trying to grow up too fast. To further complicate matters, Jamie comes down with a devastating disease that ignorant neighbors assume is 'the clap' brought back from France.There is a lot of tension in this book as the characters struggle to deal with changes and events that are beyond their control. We only see the surface of this tension through Rachel's eyes but know that the other characters are experiencing their own hells in their own ways. Rachel is a typical teenager in that she is as much concerned with how all these events will affect her but she does care deeply for her brother and feels helpless.That she turns to a potentially dangerous source of comfort is a typical teenage mistake. A young substitute teacher, hired at the last minute, draws the attention of many of her classmates but her obvious vulnerability makes her a target for his attention.This was a book small in stature but large in heart.

[loveofmuffins4820 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book caught me off guard. I was honestly expecting a trite YA novel that I'd struggle to finish, but Johnston's novel was surprisingly beautiful and touching. The narrator and protagonist, Rachel, has just the right amount of teenaged selfishness combined with genuine compassion, love and concern for her family. I found the teacher crush element relatable and as it turns out, high school is the same no matter the decade!The book brought to mind my grandfather's return from WWII--he enlisted at sixteen, came home a man and missed watching his younger siblings grow up. As Rachel's brother explains in the novel, he came home hoping everything would be just as it was before he left, that there would be no evidence of the war, that he could try to forget it. Unfortunately, the memories continued to haunt him, even as he struggled with new challenges at home.

[kellyreeder · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a LibraryThing early review. I enjoyed reading this book simply because I found the main character so much like myself growing up. Rachel's innocence, and along with her rush to grow up will stike a chord with many teenage girls. Her brother's letters are a nice touch and keep this novel a clear choice for readers looking for a rich historical novel.

[baileymm-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.What I really like is that this a different way of looking at the the post WW2 era. It looks at the aftermath for a young girl whose brother fought in the war. It looks at a family that is falling apart. It's about a man who survived the war only to come back and find out he is sick. The wide range of issues discussed makes the book feel fresh.My main problem with the book was there was a lot going on. I think The author should have focused more on Jamie and their relationship, but instead there were a lot of other things happening. It all wrapped up very nicely but between her teacher, Mary, her friends, and even the grandma there seemed to be a lot going on the was necessary.There were times when I felt the main character, Rachel, was slightly unlikely but I am okay with that. I don't think you always have to love the main character for a book to good. Overall, she was compelling but she had times of selfishness and drama, but keep in mind she is 15 year old. I know (being 17) that this is just the way 15 year old are.I definitely recommend reading this book! I was a rather fast read and it was really good. It offered a different perceptive than I have read before and I thought that was awesome!

[bucketofrhymes · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a really enjoyable piece of historical fiction for a YA audience. I was expecting more of a standard afthermath-of-the-war story, but Little Red Lies turned out to be very different from that. Between the leukemia, the predatory teacher, and the family falling apart, there's a heck of a lot going on. And the wide range of issues discussed makes the book feel fresh.Rachel is an incredibly compelling character. Sometimes selfish and dislikeable, sure, but that's not a bad thing. She's dramatic, she's intense, she's flawed, she's everything I like in a protagonist. And I love the idea of her being so into directing things -- not just the play but her real life as well.Honestly, my only complaint would be the ending... although even that isn't much of a complaint. It frustrated me at first, then it broke my heart, and now it's just staying with me. Is it abrupt and kind of vague? Yeah, but the more I think about it, the more I like it, and the more it seems like a great ending to a compelling novel.

[ryanpoole · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Overall I think this book was well written. there were a few things the bugged. me. The first being the fact that the teacher had a very little role in it. in fact for awhile I thought the main character was just imagining that the teacher was trying to get with her. especially since Rachel has over imagination in the rest of the book. It isn't tell the end when other girls come forward that you realize the teacher really is a creep. Perhaps this was on purpose to set up more drama but instead I just found it a little weird. The fact that the author thanks a doctor is also a little weird, I guess I was expecting an in depth look at treating leukemia but instead it was more general. Finally the fact that Jamie (Rachel's brother) is going for a relative of not only his best friend but also a relative of who Rachel is starting to go after is a little disturbing but not so bad that it made me hate it. Despite these I still enjoyed the book over all the last 25-35 pages really made me want to keep reading instead of putting it down after the end of a chapter. Also a huge Kudos to how the "letter not sent" was written. the style in which they were written moved it up another .5 stars alone in my mind, almost wish that style was used more throughout. Still I would definitely recommend this book!

[elizabeth_hurlburt_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I don't know what to really say about Little Red Lies. It really just wasn't a good book. There really isn't anything likeable about Rachel, the main character. There was a lot going on in every aspect of the book but none of it made the book enjoyable for me, and most of it was completely unnecessary in the end. The author just couldn't put it all together and make it work.

[aeisen_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was really excited to read this book by Julie Johnston. As a kid I read her books Hero of Lesser Causes, and Adam and Eve and Pinch Me, and really enjoyed them. Little Red Lies did not disappoint me. I thought it was a great coming of age novel.

[nawnie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really liked this book! I felt like the author made the characters very relatable to people of all ages. This book makes you keep guessing until the very end. It also gives you a glimpse into the lives of an average teenager and also into the some of the struggles that our returning soldiers are facing every day. This was a book that I had a hard time putting down. I would definitely recommend Little Red Lies!

[kissmeimgone · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was definitely not all that I expected it to be, but in a good way. Julie Johnston tells the story of Rachel's (a 15 year old girl) coming of age story, set right after WWII is over, admist her brother Jamie coming home from war. Only a short time after Jamie is home, does Rachel and everyone around Jamie realize that not everything is the same as it was before WWII. In a fight for his life despite not being on the battlefield anymore, problems in other aspects of Rachel's home life is soon revealed. One of my favorite things about Little Red Lies is the fact that throughout the entire book Johnston had me guessing on what the outcome of the story was going to be and what was going to happen next. I highly recommend this book, one of my favorite Eary Reviewer books so far.

[imagiphantaria · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"On my tombstone, they will engrave 'Rachel Liar McLaren. She meant well, but she had no backbone' "I picked Little Red Lies because the summary of a young girl growing up and dealing with her brother's changes after the war sounded interesting to me. I hadn't expected it to be subtle, charming and endearing. But that's exactly what I found it to be. It is a story of family, relationships, connection, and most of all, growing up, and being human. The main character, Rachel McLaren is an imaginative, somewhat dramatic girl with just a little bit of spunk. As a reader, you care for her. If you are close to her age, you want to be her best friend. If you are older than her, you want to take her under your wing; she feels like a little sister who has some growing up to do, but you know that when she does, she will become a remarkable woman. She has some troubles with reality at first, but she always means well. Author Julie Johnston tells this story with subtlety, really showing the reader the personality of Rachel, her brother, and her parents. There is no need to have things spelled out in the book. It ends like a fading breeze, rather than as a big bang, leaving conclusions that go without saying. Little Red Lies feels like a companion. It won't give you an epiphany, but it will stay with you. Rachel McLaren will live on in my heart.

[keristars_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Little Red Lies is an odd book in a way - from the very beginning, I felt that it relied overly much on clichés and was frustrating in the drama upon drama heaped into the plot, plus a narrator who is a very self-involved teenager. But at the same time, I was inexorably pulled into the story and relished the way the main characters were so three-dimensional, drawn consistently yet relatable and likable in one context while absolutely awful in another.It's a story about family and about growing up. It's about the struggles the McLarens face when their son James returns from the war with PTSD, though no one quite recognizes it, and everyone's method of dealing with the grief of lost friends and even the lost three years of the war that couldn't have stayed frozen in time. At least, that's where the story begins, and the shadow of the war and Jamie's health are undoubtedly the catalysts behind much of the later things that happen and the way the characters react to the unexpected.Fourteen-year-old Rachel is the narrator. She has missed her brother deeply and has been looking forward to going back to old times when he finally comes home. But she also wants to impress him with how grown-up she is, even down to her appearance and the red lipstick she wears. Unfortunately, and Rachel doesn't realize this at all (and I expect that many young readers wouldn't, either), but she is of the age where she has trouble stepping outside herself to realize that her problems aren't the end of the world, and that other people might have other situations. Rachel wants praise, to have adoration as an actress in the drama club at school, though it turns out she can't act all. All of this comes to a head with the new English teacher, a certain Mr. Dreamboat, so to speak, who gives her special attention.The McLaren parents are the kind that mean well enough, but really have no idea what's going on with their children. Dad is oblivious to it all, though he clearly loves his kids. Mom is overbearing and demanding, but does so because she believes that's the best way. Their apparent coldness towards Jamie, when he's displaying all the signs of PTSD, is difficult to read, but it's also from a time when their actions were the proscribed ones. And even though Rachel and Jamie complain about them or fight with them, there's no doubt that this family really is one and supports each other.I feel like the plot maybe had too many threads dangling and too much thrown into it, and as a result many of those threads got wrapped up a little too neatly in the final act. For example, the story with creepy Mr. Dreamboat didn't quite live up to what I needed with it, and similarly for some of Rachel's friends (I suppose that makes sense in context, since Rachel is a bit preoccupied at that point). The primary plotline, though, is very carefully worked so that even if the ending is incredibly sad, it has a gradual, gentle lead-in and the sad part is almost unnoticeable - I read it twice before I realized what it was saying.So I liked this book a lot - it was compelling to read and I found the characters to be interesting and multi-faceted. But I also didn't like it much at all, at least in part because of that ending. I imagine that I would have loved the book when I was a teenager and in the primary demographic for it!

[kassilem · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hmm… well, the book wasn’t what I had imagined from the blurb when I picked the book from the Early Reviewers list or from the dust cover blurb when I got the book. The seeking solace from a teacher is only a very small part to a much different story. It’s more about growing up and family drama and I guess in the end learning that some things are special even if you don’t think so in the moment. I didn’t really like the main character, Rachel. And the ending seemed to sum up the book very quickly. I liked the brother sister interaction and Jamie dealing with the war the most. Nothing else really grabbed me. Overall, it was an interesting story but I did not feel I got anything out of the read. Mostly, I’m sort of glad I finished it so I can move on to another book now.