Review: Not what I expected.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 13, 2013
**2.5 stars**Cheater, cheater pumpkin eater! Livie, you disappoint me.I was in the camp that liked Ten Tiny Breaths. I excused Trent's stalker behavior, and I just sat back and enjoyed the chemistry between Trent and Kasey. When I heard that Livie was getting her own book to tell her story, I was pretty excited. I expected this book to be great and went into it with high hopes. It had a beautiful cover and a lot of hype- what could go wrong?! And for the first 50% or so, I really enjoyed "One Tiny Lie". However, soon after it took a turn for the worst and I dropped my star-rating like a hot potato.Livie enters her freshman year at Princeton feeling the pressure to be perfect. She wants to make her deceased parents proud and so she is determined to study hard so she can go on and be the pediatric oncologist that they always wanted her to be. However, at her first college party, with the influence of Kasey (naughty sister!), she gets wasted and makes out with the very hot captain of the crew team, Ashton. Though she feels chemistry between them, Livie decides that Ashton isn't boyfriend material and tries to move on with a nice boy that she meets later on campus (Connor). However, avoiding Ashton and her feelings for him are not as easy as Livie originally though.Though I should be sick of it by now, the trope of the virginal girl and the bad boy player still has some draw for me. I don't mind reading about how the good girl changes a player's ways. However, this isn't quite what this book is about. It is more about Livie's inability to make a decision and grow a pair.I am not a girl who can't read about cheating. I don't mind a little cheating in books as long as it is nipped in the bud early on, and the girl breaks up with the guy she was originally dating, giving him full disclosure. Full out affairs are NOT my jam. When Livie starts hooking up with Ashton as she is dating Connor, at first I excused her. However, as it progressed and Connor was used, abused, and ignored, I grew increasingly irritated with Livie. I mean, COME ON. You knew what you were doing girl, it is just bad behavior at this point. Connor was an upstanding, nice guy and I hated to see him get treated the way that Livie treated him. She honestly didn't even seem to like him at all, so stringing him along just seemed cruel.In addition, Livie just lets Ashton walk all over her. Each time they hooked up and he left her a little note that he didn't want to see her anymore, she never got angry. She just kind of accepted it and didn't ever bring it up to him... and they kept on hooking up! Doormat alert! I was spitting mad at Ashton at the end. He deserved to stew in the naughty corner for a few months at least for that one.However, though the cheating was a big issue for me, a bigger issue was the unbelievable character of Dr. Stayner. He did things that even the most cutting edge, experimental psychologists would never dream of doing. Starting with doing weekly therapy sessions pro bono (come on!), he did the oddest things with Livie. Popping in on her unexpectedly, encouraging dangerous behavior, and meddling HUGELY in her affairs- the stuff that he did just didn't ring true. And don't get me started on what he did at the end of the book that involved Ashton. It just went so far beyond what would be considered normal.Also, I think many people would be annoyed with the back and forth between Ashton and Livie. It was a constant yo-yo that gave me a headache. I didn't like all of the games between the two of them.To top everything off, the ending wrapped up way too neatly and quickly for my tastes. It was like conflict and angst to the Nth degree until the ending... then a buttery smooth resolution.I think the twist with Ashton and his parents was an interesting one (I see twists are kind of K.A. Tucker's thing), and I stayed up until 1:30 am to see what would happen in the end. For those reasons alone, I bumped up my final rating to 3 stars. However, overall this book was a bit of a disappointment.**Copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review**