Liar’s Dice by Juliet Faithfull
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Liar’s Dice is set in 1970s Brazil and follows a young girl, Dolores, after her twin sister, Mita, gets sent overseas to a hospital in London due to a medical condition.
When the girls were young, it was discovered that Mita had a degenerative health condition that Dolores did not have. By the time the girls were around 8-years old, her condition had progressed so much that their parents didn’t feel they could care for her safely any longer.
Whether that’s true or not, it’s what they believed. They also believed the hospitals in Brazil weren’t acceptable for Mita. Therefore, it was their belief that London, where he was originally from, would be the best choice.
As you can imagine, this is a difficult decision for any family, but for Dolores, it was incomprehensible. Mita belonged with them, with her. When Mita left, Dolores felt like half her heart was gone. She could think of little else.
A lot of this book explores Dolores’s reaction to Mita being gone. She cannot understand her parent’s decision and there’s a lot of tension in the family because of the choices that have been made.
This is a true Coming of Age story. We do get the entire story from Dolores’s perspective, and she’s relaying it to us in the voice of a child/tween.
This doesn’t affect it’s depth, however, as the topics explored are deep and emotional. I did appreciate how realistic Dolores’s narrative voice felt. I feel like Faithfull did an incredible job with that.
Let me be clear, I am not a Historical Fiction girlie. This book is very much outside of my comfort zone. I picked it up only after the publisher emailed me about it and brought it to my attention. I don’t think it ever would have been on my radar if they hadn’t done that.
After reading this synopsis, I was definitely intrigued. I do love Coming of Age Horror, and this is a Coming of Age story, though very far from Horror. It still captured that nostalgic Coming of Age feel that I enjoy losing myself in, and I also loved the Brazilian setting. It was refreshing.
The MC, Dolores, was empathetic to follow. Their family went through so much over the course of the book. I’ll admit certain scenes definitely made me emotional. I’m glad I picked this one up, comfort zone or not.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Random House, for bringing this novel to my attention, and for providing me with a copy to read and review. This is a beautiful debut, and I would absolutely pick up more from this author.
I would definitely recommend this to my Historical Fiction friends, but I would also recommend it to people like me, who may not pick up a lot of the genre, but find the subject matter interesting. It really is a powerful story.