Blog Tour-The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett by Chelsea Sedoti

Goodreads Sumary:

A teenage misfit named Hawthorn Creely inserts herself in the investigation of missing person Lizzie Lovett, who disappeared mysteriously while camping with her boyfriend. Hawthorn doesn’t mean to interfere, but she has a pretty crazy theory about what happened to Lizzie. In order to prove it, she decides to immerse herself in Lizzie’s life. That includes taking her job… and her boyfriend. It’s a huge risk — but it’s just what Hawthorn needs to find her own place in the world.

My Rating:4/5 stars

My Thoughts:

Thank you to Raincoast Books for providing me a copy of this book for the blog-tour in exchange for a honest review, and thank you to Chelsea Sedoti for answering my question!

Plot:

The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett is about a girl named Hawthorn who after this girl from her town goes missing, becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her. If you really want to enjoy this book to its fullest potential, I think there are some things that you need to know. This book isn’t a mystery, and it’s not really centered all that much around Lizzie Lovett’s disappearance . While it is the catalyst for the novel, it is not the main focus. If you’re looking for a mystery novel, this book isn’t really for you but if you’re looking for a book about a girl who in the search for a missing girl, finds herself then I highly recommend it.Sedoti has a strong grip on the teenage voice, and her style makes her book all the more enjoyable.I am very excited to see Sedoti’s career unfold,as she has a promising voice. This is another one of those books where the main focus isn’t really the plot but the characters, which is something that I love in a book.

Characters:

I feel like a lot of people will not like Hawthorn because she is immature, and kind of self-centered but I appreciated her character and find her type of personality to be refreshing. Throughout most of the character, Hawthorn believes that Lizzie Lovett is a werewolf and that  is the reason as to why she disappeared. I know, I know it’s kind of weird but you know I think that her naivety is kind of endearing and a character trait that should be more prominent in storytelling. Hawthorn isn’t your typical character which is one of the reasons why I enjoyed the novel.

Throughout the story Hawthorn begins to be friends with Lizzie’s boyfriend:Enzo. While at first I quite liked him, he eventually begin to really piss me off, and I really didn’t like him. Besides Enzo, all the other characters were pretty enjoyable. Some notable ones were Hawthorn’s brother, and Hawthorn’s best friend. I really wish we could see more of them and their relationship with Hawthorn.Oh and also the hippie characters who lived in her backyard were pretty cool and offered some great advice

The last character I’d like to talk about is Lizzie. While she’s kind of the center of this novel, she’s really enigmatic. Hence the title. Though popular in high school, Lovett became something really unexpected and different from her personality in high school. I feel like this is one of the main messages of the book:that you never really know anyone.I really liked her ending, though it was kind of sad.

So that’s my review! I asked Chelsea Sedoti  a question for the blog tour and here is her response

 

In the book Hawthorn believes that you shouldn’t wish badness on others but instead wish small mishaps. Is that something that you espouse to?

 

Brace yourself. I’m about to channel some of the hippie characters from The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett.

 

Getting angry is normal. There are a lot of things in the world, people in the world, to get angry at. How can you not have hateful thoughts sometimes? How could you not occasionally wish bad things on another person?

 

But, I’ve found that when I dwell on those thoughts for too long, it ends up hurting me more than the person my anger is directed at. It feels unhealthy to carry that sort of rage inside of myself. As if, by putting that much negativity out into the world, I’m actually inviting it into my own life.

 

And so often I don’t understand what’s really happening with another person. I can’t see into their life, know what’s making them act a particular way at a particular moment.

 

Here’s an example: A driver cuts me off in traffic. My first reaction is anger. But who knows what’s going on with that driver? Maybe they’re rushing their pregnant wife to the hospital. Maybe they’re hurrying to get to work on time because if they’re late they’ll lose their job and won’t be able to feed their kids. Maybe they have a genuine emergency.

 

Probably not. Probably they’re just a jerk. But you never really know.

 

Of course, in this example, it’s easy to get over my anger. That other driver was a fleeting moment in my life. I’ll never see them again. They didn’t personally attack me.

 

In other situations, say when a close friend or family member betrays you, it’s much harder to move past it and look at the sunny side. And that’s okay. It’s okay to be hurt and angry.

 

But it’s also possible to be angry without wishing something terrible on the other person. I don’t think it’s okay to be so angry that you wish for, say, someone to die.Hawthorn hoping a person experiences small mishaps and annoyances seems pretty healthy to me. It’s an outlet for her feelings—we all need an outlet—but it’s relatively harmless at the same time. It’s not the sort of thing that might come back to haunt her.