Title: Trust Me, I'm Lying (Trust Me #1)
Author: Mary Elizabeth Summer
Release Date: October 14, 2014
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 336
Source: Bought

Overall: 5 Stars

Summary:

Fans of Ally Carter's Heist Society novels will love this teen mystery/thriller with sarcastic wit, a hint of romance, and Ocean’s Eleven–inspired action.

Julep Dupree tells lies. A lot of them. She’s a con artist, a master of disguise, and a sophomore at Chicago’s swanky St. Agatha High, where her father, an old-school grifter with a weakness for the ponies, sends her to so she can learn to mingle with the upper crust. For extra spending money Julep doesn’t rely on her dad—she runs petty scams for her classmates while dodging the dean of students and maintaining an A+ (okay, A-) average.

But when she comes home one day to a ransacked apartment and her father gone, Julep’s carefully laid plans for an expenses-paid golden ticket to Yale start to unravel. Even with help from St. Agatha’s resident Prince Charming, Tyler Richland, and her loyal hacker sidekick, Sam, Julep struggles to trace her dad’s trail of clues through a maze of creepy stalkers, hit attempts, family secrets, and worse, the threat of foster care. With everything she has at stake, Julep’s in way over her head . . . but that’s not going to stop her from using every trick in the book to find her dad before his mark finds her. Because that would be criminal. 

My Thoughts:  
As soon as I learned Trust Me, I'm Lying was about a teenage con artist, I instantly added the book to my must-read list. Perfect for fans of Veronica Mars and Ally Carter's Heist Society series, Mary Elizabeth Summer's debut novel is fun, fresh, and completely unpredictable. Julep Dupree is a confident and resourceful heroine, but she's going to need the help of all her friends to outwit her father's enemies and stay one step ahead of them.

To help pay for her education at her upper crust Chicago high school, Julep runs small scams for her wealthy classmates, well-aware they can easily afford her fees. When Julep returns home one evening to find her apartment ransacked and her father missing, she must find a way to unravel the trail of obscure clues he's left behind. Julep's father—an old-school grifter—was involved in something very dangerous, and she will need to use all the tricks of the trade she's learned from him if she hopes to ever see him again. 

It's kind of funny that for a girl who's so smart, she can still be pretty oblivious at times. Julep can so easily understand her marks and make predictions about how they'll act, yet she fails to recognize that her best friend Sam has feelings for her that go beyond friendship. Sam has always been her faithful sidekick and hacker extraordinaire, but he wants more, even if he doesn't voice it. What makes it all the more complicated is the interest Tyler Richland, the most popular guy at school, has suddenly taken in Julep. 

I would've never guessed that Trust Me, I'm Lying would end the way it did. I can't even remember the last time a conclusion took me so much by surprise! Julep always has some kind of plan in motion, even if she doesn't necessarily disclose it to readers, so I just had to trust that everything would fall into place. Trust Me, I'm Lying maintains an air of mystery and suspense from the very first page until the very last one.

I can't wait to read the sequel Trust Me, I'm Trouble!