I liked this a lot!! I was digging around all year for something set on MV for the Libro.fm Audiobook Challenge — there was a prompt to listen to an audiobook set in your favorite city! My favorite “cities” are all tiny towns with dirt roads, so I expanded my search a little to the whole Vineyard (this is set in a very different world than the MV my Grandpa and Mom lived on year-round, thankfully, haha)!

It’s interesting this is categorized as YA, and it made me a little wary since I’m not generally a YA reader (except for, like, The Poet X or Firekeeper’s Daughter, which are both such great literature regardless of category!). Liar’s Beach is not some magnificent literature (but it’s not, to my feel, trying to be that) but I found it so effective at what it was, a sort of semi-locked room mystery. I really loved the character of Holiday — the blurb says she’s a recast Hercule Poirot and while I don’t read Agatha Christie (racism) I do feel like I could easily follow Holiday from book to book, which is to me such a great feeling to have about a mystery-novel protagonist!

The class disparities in this and the sort of ambivalence and shame surrounding them — it’s a summer novel, but it’s very much centered on prep school characters, and the narrator is in a totally different socioeconomic bracket than his peers — often reminded me of The Secret History, which, again, great compliment for a thriller or mystery I think! Somehow it evokes dark academia despite being set on Martha’s Vineyard.

Overall I thought this was super effective and I’ll for sure (in 2025, I think! Have to finish up a few more December reads first!) read the second novel Katie Cotugno set in this universe.