The small coastal town of Gardiners Bay is home to the beautiful girls from prestigious Preston Prep and the alluring and mysterious boys from Rookwood Reform School. As members from both groups start meeting for secret parties in the woods, new relationships develop, and loyalties are tested.  In THIS IS WHY WE LIE by Gabriella Lepore, the death of a young girl propels two students to question everything they know about those they call their closest friends.

Told from the dual perspectives of Jenna Dallas and Adam Cole, the story opens with Adam and Jenna finding the dead body of Jenna’s classmate, Colleen O’Dell, in the ocean.  What appears to be a drowning is later determined a homicide, putting the town on high alert.  Jenna doesn’t know Adam well, but something makes her trust him when he says he didn’t do it.  

Jenna’s best friend Hollie becomes the prime suspect after incriminating text messages surface and witnesses tell police Hollie threatened the girl before her death.  Jenna believes her friend is innocent and she begins looking into the night of Colleen’s death. 

Adam is used to being interrogated, so it doesn’t surprise him when the police start looking at him and his friends as suspects.  Colleen was known to frequent the parties in the woods. Adam doesn’t know who to trust or believe, but his loyalties to the other Rooks runs deep. 

When Jenna and Adam start relying on each other to find out the truth, will they be making the right decision, or is one of them lying? 

THIS IS WHY WE LIE is a YA novel that has it all.  A small seaside community, bored prep school girls, reform school boys looking for a way out, a cabin in the woods, and a scandalous secret that leads to murder. It has the angst of teenage drama and coming of age set against the divide of those who have everything and those who have nothing to lose. Gabriella Lepore's writing is good and the novel moves quickly with police interviews and text messages interwoven into the story.  Jenna and Adam are fleshed-out characters with real issues and emotions and they carry the story to the explosive conclusion with a showdown you won’t see coming.  This is an exceptionally good addition to the genre.