Review: Perfect Lies (Mind Games #2) by Kiersten White

Title: Perfect Lies
Author: Kiersten White
Series: Mind Games
Book #: 2 (final)
Pages: 232
Reading Level: YA
Book Rating: 
Goodreads Rating: 3.93
Published: Feb. 18th, 2014

Annie and Fia are ready to fight back.

The sisters have been manipulated and controlled by the Keane Foundation for years, trapped in a never ending battle for survival. Now they have found allies who can help them truly escape. After faking her own death, Annie has joined a group that is plotting to destroy the Foundation. And Fia is working with James Keane to bring his father down from the inside.

But Annie's visions of the future can't show her who to trust in the present. And though James is Fia's first love, Fia knows he's hiding something. The sisters can rely only on each other - but that may not be enough to save them.

Taschima's POV:

Perfect Lies was a great sequel which kept all the original intricacies of Mind Games while pushing these same details to the edge. While I enjoyed Mind Games a bit more than Perfect Lies I can still appreciate where Kiersten White took the story and how she built up the characters for the fantastical, yet anti climatic, ending. didn't it seem to anybody else that the big bad guy just died way too easily?

Perfect Lies has the same great mood and easy dialogue of Mind Games. Finishing the novel was a breeze. The characters are the real centerpiece of this world. Annie changed and grew up in this title becoming more strong and independent while Fia slowly unraveled. Fia went real scary crazy, always trying to do the right thing while not knowing how to really get to doing the right thing in the end. Half the time I couldn't quite understand her reasoning when doing some choices, and I thought Kiersten White was just turning her into the real bad guy who thinks she is in the right path. Which would have been quite awesome. It seems her inner power is broken while Annie's begins to grow.

Annie is way more likable in this title than in Mind Games because she starts to take some of the responsibility off Fia's shoulders and starts trying to learn how to defend herself. Seeing how they grow in different directions is quite interesting and one of the best aspects of the title.

One thing to be aware before you read is that the story is told from not only to different points of view but two different points in time. Annie is 4 months behind Fia's timeline, which can get a little annoying but you will get used to it... hopefully. It is a hard pill to swallow but well worth the annoyance in order to see where the sisters' lives interconnect without them even quite knowing.

Perfect Lies could have been a great middle novel, but in my opinion it is does not a great ending make. It was just not what I expected to be quite honest, I felt it was rushed and way too easy. Fia really unraveled and didn't even feel like herself by the end. We didn't get to enjoy seeing both the girls coming into their own skin and getting some sort of closure. The ending would have also made a lot more sense if Perfect Lies had a sequel with a much better bad guy (James, perhaps?), one that we got to actually connect to in some sort of way and that put up a better fight.

But still, even though the ending wasn't my favorite part of the book it is still well worth reading. The way Kiersten White writes the relationship between Annie and Fia is terrific, they are my favorite part of the book. Fia is a little psychotic, but that's okay. Annie is sheltered yet at the end she ends up being strong enough for both her and her sister.  Perfect Lies, the whole series actually, is strong and easy to read to the very end.

PS; Bravo to the cover artist, this cover is out of this world!