Review: Dealy Little Lie (Touch Series#2) by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Title: Deadly Little Lies (Touch Series #2)

Author: Laurie Faria Stolarz

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal

Publisher: Publisher: Hyperion

Summary/Synopsis: Last fall, sixteen-year-old Camelia fell for Ben, a new boy at school who had a very mysterious gift – psychometry, the ability to sense the future through touch. But just as Camelia and Ben's romance began to heat up, he abruptly left town. Brokenhearted, Camelia has spent the last few months studying everything she can about psychometry and experiencing strange brushes with premonition. Camelia wonders if Ben's abilities have somehow been transferred to her.

Ben returns to school, but he remains aloof, and Camelia can't get close enough to share her secret with him. Camelia makes the painful decision to let him go and move on. Adam, the hot new guy at Knead, seems good for her in ways Ben wasn't. But when Camelia and Adam start dating, a surprising love triangle results. A chilling sequence of events uncovers secrets from Ben’s past – and Adam's. Someone is lying, and it's up to Camelia to figure out who – before it's too late. -Taken from Goodreads

Review: 

Plot: 

     So the plot of Deadly Little Lies...It's...Ugh, I should just go ahead and say it, unoriginal.

     The plot of this book is basically a lame version of the Pretty Little Liars books. You can see the resemblance: Stalker, sending threatening notes, written by red pen... Except that this stalker is much more lame then any of the "A"s, he/she hardly ever leaves a note, and when he/she did, it was usually the same message: "you're dead", "you're next",etc. Being a stalker is a full time job! You don't see A taking breaks whenever there is romance in the Liars' life, and A gives thought to her notes, what's the point of repeating "you're dead" over and over again to his/her victim!? Camelia won't actually drop dead because of it.

     Then, there's the romance. Normally this would be the place where I say I adore which and which couple, but I can't. Because all the couples (actually there's only about two different couples in this book) are not appealing to me. This book introduced Adam and he quickly took an interest in Camelia, whereas Camelia, spent the whole book trying to forget about Ben. I've said it in the last review, I don't like Camelia&Ben, or Camelia and Ben for that matter, so I don't really care whether she got over him or are they on-again-off-again or not. As for Adam, I think he's okay, better than Ben actually, he's not mopey all the time, acting like the world owns him something, and he's actually funny, wheres our poor male protagonist is humorless and mopey, he can't even made up his mind about Camelia, but that rant would better save for when I talk about the characters.

    The atmosphere of the book should be grim and scary, but I don't really see it. I mean, there are times when Camelia was alone in her house and it got creepy, but overall the book doesn't emit scary, it emits lame-stalker-story.

    There are three good things about this book though, one: it has a better ending. With 30 pages more than Deadly Little Secret, the ending of Dead Little Lies isn't rushed. It desperately screams "sequel" though. Well, I guess that's a step-up. Two, it's fast-paced, at least I don't have to read any more lame attempts at trying to be an intimidating stalker. Three, it has a pleasant plot twist when the identity of the inept stalker was revealed.

World-building:

    So, apparently, the town mentioned in the book (I think it's called Freetown? That's the name of the high school too), is a prank-laden one. And rumors travel fast in this town too, basic small town setting, I have nothing to say.

    There are new developments on the paranormal powers though. So psychometry might actually be hereditary. Since Camelia's aunt has the power, Camelia seems to have it too. Not much about Ben's situation though, but his family probably was psychometric too.

Characters:

    I have rants readied for this part, so let's start with Camelia.

    Camelia was stalked, again. And this she didn't tell her parents, again. So, basically what happened with Camelia in book one actually just happened again in book two, and she actually dealt with the situation the same way she dealt with it on book one, tries to swallow it all herself and making lame or zero attempt to actually try to identify the stalker. She did tell the counselor though, not much help was presented because of the act, but at least she learnt something from last time's experience. I also found out that Camelia is a super boring person. No, not about her sculpting, it's actually a good hobby, at least to me, it's about her music choice. It's only a sentence but I can't help but noticed, Camelia actually listened to the sound of rain hitting brooks on her phone. What does this tell us about her? That she was so last generation she can't even choose some pop songs. I know, I'm making kind of a big deal, but I can't help but be incredulous about this.

    Okay, let's talk about Ben. I still hate the guy, even more so this time. Throughout the book he said he wanted space from Camelia, and when she gave him space, he wouldn't let her go. I know, he was doing this for Camelia's sake, well, then act like you really don't care, not like a lovesick puppy! I found him annoying, he has his own set of rules and expect people to stick with another set of rules, and the way he kept appearing to Camelia was actually beyond annoying. You either be with her or not, make a choice, dude! As much as I dislike Camelia, I don't think she should end up with Ben, there is plenty of good-looking guys, there is no need to be fixated at him.

Conclusion:

    I'll give this book 2.5 stars, that's the most I can give, I actually want to give 2 only, but at least the book has better scary scenes this time, the stalker's not that scary though and the characters are still annoying to me, not much development on any characters too. The writing's actually good, it flows fast and is not heavily burdened with details, I can see Laurie is experienced in her writing, needs to come up with better plots though. I bought book three, I really want to drop the series, if it was just gonna make lame-o versions of famous YA series, the first book was Twilight and second one was Pretty Little Liars, let's see if there will be rip-off of The Hunger Games too!

Rating: two stars!