Lydia Cooper is a Lie - Meaghan McIsaac

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"For as long as Lydia can remember, it's been her and her dad against the world. But while she loves him, her dad is so overprotective. Well-versed in the dangers of the internet from his job in cybersecurity, he refuses to let Lydia be online without heavy parental controls, and social media is out of the question.

One day, when all Lydia's friends are invited to a movie night at her crush's house - except her because she's not in the group chat - Lydia gets fed up with her dad's rules and makes a social media account. Then an armed intruder shows up at her home. Clearly, there's more to her family's past than she knows.

On the run and separated from her dad, Lydia will need to uncover the secrets her dad has been keeping if she wants to reunite with him. But how can Lydia know who to trust along the way when she doesn't even know who she is?"

From the moment Lydia sneaks behind her dad's back to create a social media account, inadvertently revealing her and her dad's location to some not-so-savory characters, this book is a rollercoaster as Lydia tries to navigate one dangerous situation after another. Her dad warns her to trust no one, and she reminds herself of that over and over as she tries to find her way to the safe house where they're supposed to be reunited. The reader is pulled in to Lydia's sense of panic by the almost frantic pace of the book, and things move so quickly that I was shocked when I got to the end of the book - it flew by! 

My one minor gripe with this book is that the premise felt a bit forced to me. Lydia is fourteen and desperately wants social media so she can keep up with her friends and all the things they talk about, but her dad won't let her get it because he sees too much dark stuff at his job. Given that information and feeling like her dad doesn't trust her, it's only natural that she would rebel and try to go behind his back...but if he had just been honest with her, that would never have happened, and if such dangerous people were after you and your daughter was pushing constantly to be allowed on social media, don't you think you'd do everything you could to make sure she knew what was at stake? Like I said, minor gripe, and honestly, one that I don't think would bother the target audience.

Outside of that, I thought the characters were solid (I really loved Max, she seemed like a solid friend!), the action was thrilling, and the pace was perfect. I think this would pull kids in and keep them reading, it was thrilling!