Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera, investigates a small-town mystery when a true-crime podcaster comes to town. Years ago, Lucy’s best friend Savvy was murdered, and Lucy was found a few hours later, covered in Savvy’s blood, confused and disoriented with no memory of what happened. Although there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her, everyone in their hometown believes Lucy killed Savvy.  Naturally, Lucy left town and hasn’t been back since. Now, a super hot true-crime podcaster is in town investigating the night of Savvy’s murder, and after being dragged home for her grandmother’s birthday, Lucy decides to stay in the town she hates, full of people she hates, and talk to him on his public podcast.

This suspense novel was pretty meh for me. It has such good reviews and pullquotes from other authors I like! I had high expectations going in! The problem definitely wasn’t the overall plot. The murder and aftermath is very well-plotted, and the true-crime podcaster in town makes a solid explanation for all the revelations. I didn’t fully understand why Lucy was willing to talk to Ben, but whatever, it would be boring to only read books about characters that do what I would do. Besides, I can accept when fictional characters find time to write detailed diaries of key plot moments (and often leave them for other characters to find), so why not accept a podcast version?

I think it was underwhelming for me because I just didn’t worry about Lucy’s story or situation. Lucy doesn’t care about her underwhelming day job, her secret successful-author job, her boyfriend in LA, her parents, her old friends, or anything really, she didn’t have much motivation for anything beside snarkily skating on the edge of being blamed for her Savvy’s murder. Even parts of her life that were objectively going well, she just shrugged.  Because readers never really get to see her liking or disliking something, it was hard to connect with, which made it hard to care about her. Even her romance with Ben the true-crime podcaster — this does not count as a spoiler, it’s very clearly signposted — doesn’t feel like a connection. (I guess Lucy likes her grandmother, or at least, her grandmother loves her so much that Lucy has more than an annoyed shrug for her grandmother.) I think my problem with the novel was that I didn’t care much about Lucy, which made it hard to worry about if she was guilty or not. She’s not risking arrest or jail, she’s just risking the bad opinions of people she doesn’t care about and hasn’t seen in years, and who already don’t like her. So I felt more of a general curiosity about what Ben would uncover than any concern for Lucy (or Savvy), and as I read, my feelings never really turned into suspense or tension.

I did enjoy Ben’s podcast turning up all kinds of local secrets. Again, I wasn’t entirely sure why everyone was so forthcoming, but real people really share super personal things on reality shows and podcasts.  There’s an entire town of constant bed-hopping. At some point, everyone swapping partners starts to feel more like a farce than shocking revelations.

After this one and Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead, I think amnesia in thrillers might just not be for me. Something felt forced about Lucy’s amnesia, and the bits that she was able to recall and when she got the memories back also felt forced. I felt like amnesia flashes were being doled out like game hints. Maybe amnesia just isn’t a device for me. I really loved reading about a protagonist with crucial memory gaps in both The Witch Elm and Quiet in Her Bones, though.

The ending was the biggest meh of all. Stop here for spoilers, y’all. Lucy’s new perceived innocence now hinges on Ben’s lie, which is a smart and funny comment on the court of public opinion! But that doesn’t really match Ben’s whole identity as an investigator, and a murder defense that relies on solely on the old suspect’s boyfriend as the only one who heard the new suspect say he’s guilty is a pretty vague case. Plus, over the course of the book we’ve heard about another unsolved murder, an abusive husband, and loads of secrets that just never get addressed again, making for a weirdly unsatisfying ending.