Good story, atrocious proofreading.

Typos, missed words and subject-verb agreement errors are a pet peeve when reading. Some examples are, “How can she not here this?” Should be hear. “He crossed him arms...” Should be his. “Each woman had their own...” Should be her. “I tried to knob on the door.” Should be the. More than twenty of these stood out. If this does not bother you, Three Little Lies by Melissa Wolff is a good story.

A YA suspense, the plot opens in Virginia in the summer, and the story is told through the POV of the protagonist, Amber, a troubled fifteen-year-old. Her best friend, Madison, disappeared, Amber suffered a horrendous accident and her family situation is bad. Forced to live with her half-sister, Rebecca, Amber meets Ethan Hunter the son of the Mayor. Wolff was able to create a realistic character in Amber and to develop her personality to engage the reader. For the most part, all of the characters were unique. However, there is a conflict with Amber’s future brother-in-law, Jacob, which wasn’t developed and had no resolution.

The pacing of the novel was good, disclosing revelations at a steady rate. One issue was Madison’s first diary entry. It revealed to the reader what Amber’s best friend had been up to prior to her disappearance. This may have been intentional, but the protagonist’s understanding of the event didn’t resonate until later in the story.

Melissa Wolff has an impressive grasp of teenagers and stayed true to her characters. Keeping in mind the impulsiveness of the age, most of the happenstances were believable. The plot is imaginative and the writing is good. A qualified proofreader would help this author shine.
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Clearly not my cup of tea, you very well might feel differently. Whatever my thoughts venture for yourself.

Love the surprise twist, very well done. Amber is a 15/16 year old, snarky, angry, defiant and a bastard child (authors words, not mine), a little more character development to further explain why she is the way she is would be nice, as it stands the reader bears the burden of why with an awful lot of assuming.

Her reaction to the horrid discovery is absolutely implausible, she would be freaked out as anyone would be stumbling upon what she did. The auspicious narrative needs heavy editing. The numerous grammatical errors deter from the reading experience. The plot is good, would be great if Amber wasn’t 16 years old but older. She vacillates from being a immature brat to acting half human, her personality is annoying, difficult to like the girl.

Weighty subject matter was address but sloughed off casually. A big no no in my book. If you introduce touchy topics you should resolve them properly otherwise edit/omit please.

With a more mature and developed protagonist in combination with the somewhat promising plot, this novella could pass muster to an average audience. Solid strong editing would vastly improve the entire undertaking. Clean up the heavy topics with clear resolution, messy as is. A fast pace read, in need of fine tuning. ( )

I received a copy of this book from story cartel in exchange for an honest review. All opinions which follow are entirely my own.

This book starts off seeming like your typical "teens try to find missing friend" story, and with the exception of a few weird occurrences here and there, it stays that way through most of the book. When the final twist hits, though, it REALLY hits. I'm still in shock over it, and can't stop sitting here shaking my head.

Very well written, and a total page turner. ( )