Book Review: Tell Me Pretty Lies by Charliegh Rose

Tell Me Pretty Lies 

by Charleigh Rose

Release Date: April 5, 2020

Source: Author

Goodreads

Three things my mother acquired when she became engaged:

1. A brand new Tiffany's ring.
2. A lavish home on Heartbreak Hill.
3. Three privileged stepsons.

The last thing I expected was to fall for one of them, least of all Thayer Ames.
Beautiful, brooding, and untouchable. 
I knew it was a bad idea. He warned me himself. 
But he was a thunderstorm, and I never could resist the rain. 
It was perfect…
Until it wasn’t. 
One night was all it took for our world to crumble, leaving only secrets and lies between us. 
Now, I have to face him again, but the boy I used to know has become the man who loves to hate me.

I love Charleigh Rose. We all know that. But when I started this book, it was really hard for me to get into. I felt like we had every high school bully romance cliche thrown at us and I, at this point, didn't really care. I have been having a really hard time enjoying high school bully romances lately and I don't know if it's me or that genre is just becoming too overdone at this point. However, when we got to about the halfway mark and Thayer started to talk about his emotions more, I was really hooked on this book. 

I would say the latter 50% of the book made this a 4 star read instead of a 3 star read for me. I really enjoyed how we got a genuine answer for why Thayer was being mean to Shayne and how he didn't do anything that was not consensual or unforgivable. When things became more intimate, Shayne was giving consent and they were genuinely into each other. I did also like how there was a mystery over what had happened in this past a year ago and how that all came to light at the end. 

I will say that I think more flashbacks between Thayer and Shayne before things ruined their relationships would have made the connection between them more understandable to the reader. We only really get the prologue and that's it and we're supposed to believe they had this whole tension build up between them before Thayer went away for a year. Overall, if you love the high school bully trope, you should definitely give this a try. If you're over that genre or have read too many, you might want to skip this one.