Hardcover, 254 pages
Release Date: July 21, 2015Published by: Viking Books for Young ReadersStand-aloneSource: BoughtFor fans of: Thrillers, Contemporary, Crime, YA
We Were Liars meets Heist Society in a riveting debut!Seventeen-year-old Violet’s entire life has revolved around one thing: becoming Erica Silverman, an heiress kidnapped at age five and never seen again.
Violet’s father, the best con man in Las Vegas, has a plan, chilling in its very specific precision. Violet shares a blood type with Erica; soon, thanks to surgery and blackmail, she has the same face, body, and DNA. She knows every detail of the Silvermans’ lives, as well as the PTSD she will have to fake around them. And then, when the time is right, she “reappears”—Erica Silverman, brought home by some kind of miracle.
But she is also Violet, and she has a job: Stay long enough to steal the Silverman Painting, an Old Master legendary in the Vegas crime world. Walking a razor’s edge, calculating every decision, not sure sometimes who she is or what she is doing it for, Violet is an unforgettable heroine, and Pretending to be Erica is a killer debut.
*MY THOUGHTS*
“Las Vegas is the only place I know where money really talks- it says ‘goodbye.’“
pg. i
Erica has been missing for thirteen years. That is until Violet becomes her after waiting her entire life to pretend to be her. Violet’s father taught her all there was to know about Erica and expects her to carry out what she is supposed to do. Violet knows what she must do and wants nothing more than to make her father proud.
“Make them believe in your make-believe“
pg. 5
Unlike most other bloggers, I really struggled with this book. I was so intrigued with the synopsis, I didn’t think about what type of affect it would have on the plot. And it definitely did have one. It made it boring. The entire time it made the book mainly a contemporary. Normally, reading a contemp is a good thing for me, but the fact that it’s tagged as a thriller annoys me. I seem to have trouble with all thrillers like this. Most of the time when it turns out like a contemp, I mark it as two stars, but this one was a little more interesting. Tack on the fact that there is still a thriller troupe tacked on, I wasn’t completely sold. Wanting to know how everything turned out was the only thing that saved this one for me.
“A con artist is the world’s most desperate actor. A PI is the world’s most desperate seeker.“
pg. 86
And even that wasn’t the best. For this to be a thriller it was so much more milder than what it should have been. It could have had a really epic scene but it just turned out really bland and safe. I guess I should’ve expected that since the whole book seemed the same way, but really it just wasn’t exciting. I probably could’ve skimmed this to see what happened and been happy. Maybe it’s all the epic thrillers 2015 has had that have set the bar high, but this one didn’t quite reach it to me.
“Games are my blood. I am a player for a living.“
pg. 126
Even though the plot wasn’t exactly my taste, I did like the writing style. Painchaud is a debut author that everyone should look out for. I really think this is something that I would have liked had it been announced as something else other than a thriller. There were no surprises and no scenes that made my heart start flying. But if her next book is a contemp or something of that nature, I will definitely be game for trying it out.
