I have to say, I really enjoyed this story, despite finding the characters utterly annoying at times, which I think is a testament to the author’s talent and the narrator’s too. Telling Lies Online is the story of a train wreck, you know it’s going to happen but you can’t help watching and you can’t prevent it. It’s unnerving and irritating. And yet, it’s very sweet too, go figure…
So, what’s the story? A technical glitch leads to a series of bad decisions. Jay and Claire have been online dating for a while, and both think they might have found The One. Only problem is, a bug changed Jay’s profile into a man’s. Claire is straight, or so she believes. In a totally unrealistic move, she decides to leave Portland (in Oregon) for Boston (on the other side of the country), where Jay lives. When she gets there, instead of telling her there was a bug on the dating website and she’s really a woman, Jay becomes Jamie and introduces herself as Jay’s colleague. She then uses everything she’s learnt about Claire during their months of chatting to woo her. I spent the whole book wanting to shake Jamie for missing so many opportunities to end her lies and Claire for being so gullible.
The most interesting thing about this novel, I think, it’s that it’s Miranda MacLeod‘s debut, and that she wrote it as part of NaNoWriMo. As she explains on her website, she wrote in a little over a month, it in not the best conditions (that’s part of the fun). I’ve read a couple of the books she wrote since and liked them a lot, which I find very encouraging for would-be authors.
Jude in the Stars 