I really enjoyed this book but I felt that the characters were more mature than the writing. ( )

Good realistic novel about grief and love and trying to move on, learning that the one you thought had loved you was keeping so many secrets and telling so many lies that you hardly knew her. When Alix's girlfriend Swan dies suddenly, Alix is overcome by grief, but soon discovers that Swan was seeing another girl, and lying to them both. Alix meets Liane, the other girl, and they move from resenting each other, to friendship, to more as they help each other get over Swan and see that what they'd had with her wasn't real love at all. Alix also has other family issues to contend with, but I liked her supportive but firm parents. Nice story, juicy drama, f/f romance. Some f-bombs, maybe for 8th grade and up. ( )

When Alix's charismatic girlfriend, Swanee, dies from sudden cardiac arrest, Alix is overcome with despair. As she searches Swanee's room for mementos of their relationship, she finds Swanee's cell phone, pinging with dozens of texts sent from a mysterious contact, L.T. The most recent text reads: "Please tell me what I did. Please, Swan. Te amo. I love you." Shocked and betrayed, Alix learns that Swanee has been leading a double life--secretly dating a girl named Liana the entire time she's been with Alix. Alix texts Liana from Swanee's phone, pretending to be Swanee in order to gather information before finally meeting face-to-face to break the news. Brought together by Swanee's lies, Alix and Liana become closer than they'd thought possible. But Alix is still hiding the truth from Liana. Alix knows what it feels like to be lied to--but will coming clean to Liana mean losing her, too?

I listened to this on audio and it was a quick listen. The story proved that even women can be liars and cheats which isn’t something you read a lot in books. I was going to give this 2 stars but I did love the ending when they talked about hypocrisy in religion and that God is Love. ( )

(I got this book for free from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program in exchange for a review.)

This is a moving novel of grief, growing up, romance and self-discovery. The book's protagonist, Alix, is devastated when her girlfriend, Swanee, dies suddenly of a previously unknown heart condition. She had been Alix's first love and Alix was awed by her and thought they'd be together throughout high school and college, perhaps however. After Swanee's death, though, Alix learns that she had been seeing another girl, Liana, throughout the time she was also seeing Alix. The two girls get to know each other and wind up falling in love with each other, but Alix is keeping secrets from Liana that could ruin their budding relationship.

I liked this book because I thought it showed grief very realistically, as Alix has to both deal with her loss and cope with the dawning realization that Swanee wasn't the person she thought she was, that she was controlling and jealous, that she lied about many things, and that her "cool" family is actually very dysfunctional. The subplot involving Alix's attempts to help Swanee's troubled younger sister kind of petered out, but I actually liked that because it seemed more realistic that way -- a lot of times in real life, your attempt to help someone comes to nothing and you wind up giving up.

There are a couple of other young adult novels I can think of that have a similar plot to this (that is, losing your first love, then finding out you never really knew them); Samantha Schutz's You Are Not Here comes to mind. I think Lies My Girlfriend Told Me is the best of the bunch, though. ( )