The Weight of Lies – Review
DISCLAIMER: You may disagree with my opinion, and that’s OK!
So…The Weight of Lies. I don’t remember what led me to pick up this book. It may have just been that it was a deal on amazon. The tagline sounded right up my alley and I don’t bother much with reading reviews (because who listens to book reviewers right?) so I went for it. And while this didn’t make my “regret reading list”, it was a near miss.
The premise of this book is a twenty-something woman named Megan goes digging into the murder that her mother used as the basis of her mega bestselling book and finds “devastating truths-and dangerous lies”. You can’t blame me right? What I actually got was really unrelatable and unlikable characters, a mystery I really didn’t care about and saw coming a mile away, and a romance that was more out of place than this book on my shelf.
I’m guessing we’re supposed to feel bad for Megan because of her mother’s absenteeism and coldness but I really don’t. Now, I’m not the mixed race daughter of a multimillionaire but I could not for the life of me relate to this woman or get myself to be on “her side” at all. She fumbled around this “mystery” blindly ignoring signs that said “HEY!!! LOOK HERE!!! THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED!!!” all while lusting after the sexy grounds keeper. Her focus was so far off and she was completely self-absorbed that I really couldn’t feel sorry for anything that happened. Her mother was just as bad and a complete caricature of the rich white woman we’ve all come to know and love from prime time TV. The hunky grounds keeper was a doctor with impeccable abs and a way with animals. I don’t know if Carpenter intended to have every character so cookie cutter but none of them ever had a life of their own.
There were some aspects of the book that made me appreciate (or hope) that Carpenter did some research into the novel which I did like, two of the main themes were the “White Savior” complex and cultural appropriation as they relate to Native Americans. It wasn’t a very strong theme mind you, but it was there and I appreciate it.
TLDR:
It could be that I just wasn’t this books target audience, but I just did not like it at all. A lack of good characters, compelling plot, or real mystery left this at a two out of five starts for me. I don’t feel like it was a waste of money or a complete waste of time but I was extremely disappointed
