LIAR

What if the boy who cried wolf wasn't just a liar? What if HE was a wolf? In Larbalestier's striking time-tripping novel, 17-year-old Micah is the ultimate in unreliable narrators. Her boyfriend has been killed. The book hangs on that whodunit, and on a supernatural tale of a werewolf (or maybe not), all delivered from Micah's point of view. But Micah is a liar, as she repeatedly reminds us. Channie Waites makes us long to believe Micah as she speaks in a warm, anchoring voice that belies the character herself. Waites pulls us in—only to startle us at the end with a tone that turns the story on its head. Her inviting delivery makes it impossible to distinguish psychopathic murder from the way of the wolf. It's clearly easier to be a canis lupus in Central Park than a troubled teen in Manhattan. Wolves, at least, don't lie. M.M.C. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2010]