Books on Our Radar: The Lies We Tell by Katie Zhao

The Lies We Tell by Katie Zhao should be on your radar if you like college-aged thrillers with a connection to current social issues, a coming of age plot, and a bit of rivals to lovers romance, then I think you will want to add this book to your TBR for the August 9th release!

CW: The book discusses important topics of fetishization & hate crimes against East Asians.

Thank you to Bloomsbury YA for providing me with an ARC for consideration.

The Lies We Tell

by Katie Zhao
Published by: Bloomsbury YA
on August 9, 2022
Genres: Contemporary, Thriller, Young Adult
Bookshop
Goodreads

Anna Xu moving out of her parent's home and into the dorms across town as she starts freshman year at the local, prestigious Brookings University. But her parents and their struggling Chinese bakery, Sweetea, aren't far from campus or from mind, either.

At Brookings, Anna wants to keep up her stellar academic performance and to investigate the unsolved campus murder of her childhood babysitter. While there she also finds a familiar face – her middle-school rival, Chris Lu. The Lus also happen to be the Xu family's business rivals since they opened Sunny's, a trendy new bakery on Sweetea's block. Chris is cute but still someone to be wary of – until a vandal hits Sunny's and Anna matches the racist tag with a clue from her investigation.

Anna grew up in this town, but more and more she feels like maybe she isn't fully at home here -- or maybe it's that there are people here who think she doesn't belong. When a very specific threat is made to Anna, she seeks out help from the only person she can. Anna and Chris team up to find out who is stalking her and take on a dangerous search into the hate crimes happening around campus. Can they root out the ugly history and take on the current threat?

The Lies We Tell is a social activism/we all belong here anthem crossed with a thriller and with a rivals-to-romance relationship set on a college campus.