Sweet Little Lies by Lauren Conrad

To be honest, I was hesitant about reading this book or the series. It turned out to be better than I expected. I have to agree with other reviewers, the LA Candy series is light and fluffy.

I didn’t read the first book, LA Candy but plunged into the second. It is not necessary to go back and read LA Candy to understand the story unless you just want to.

Plot Summary

Pictures of Jane have been released to the public, but she has no idea who is behind them. Madison Parker pretends to Jane’s best friend and shoulder to lean on during the crisis while she schemes to destroy Jane’s “America’s sweetheart” image. Madison also schemes to get more magazine covers and airtime on LA Candy. Scarlett tries to warn Jane about Madison but she refuses to listen. Madison seeks to destroy Jane and Scarlett’s friendship to the point of Jane moving out of the apartment that she shared with her best friend Scarlett. Scarlett begins secretly dating Liam the camera guy who is “off limits”. Her secret doesn’t stay a secret before long when Madison spots them at a party. Jane continues to date her looser boyfriend Jesse who has a drinking problem and doesn’t show any indication of changing his ways. One of Jane’s friends helps her to see who is behind scandal.

This is a classic story of learning who your real friends are. The story is very straight forward and it doesn’t take long to see who is guilty. Sweet Little Lies is definitely a book for leisure. In my opinion, I think that it is least likely to be taken seriously in a literature class. It’s a quick read and a distraction from everyday life.

Before reading this novel, I was expecting it to be a fictionalized version of The Hills. I wasn’t a regular viewer of The Hills but I know enough about the cast to see some striking resemblance. Jesse is likely to be based on Jason. Scarlett reminds me of Lo which is Lauren’s real life best friend, and Madison resembles Heidi. I didn’t see much character development in the story. The characters seemed to be flat-what you see is what you get. For instance, Gaby comes off as a ditzy airhead and she isn’t given many opportunities to prove herself otherwise. I also found the characters and the storyline to be exhausting at times. I just couldn’t understand why Jane wanted to continue dating Jesse after all that he puts her through during the course of the story. After reading Madison side of the story, why couldn’t Jane see that she was pretending to be her friend and destroying her repretation?

I thought that this was going to be Lauren’s fictional tell all about life on The Hills. However, she does explain what happens behind the scenes on reality shows. The LA Candy series reads like a gossip magazine and it makes you think twice about signing up for a reality show if given the opportunity.