Wicked Lies Boys Tell by K. Webster

This is a juicy combination of teenage angst and delicious smut. So I get why this book has gotten such great ratings. I truly do. It’s an engaging and emotional story.

But I might just be a bit too old and a bit too jaded to appreciate all the drama. Or the excessive horniness of 18-year old boys.

Simply put, Wicked Lies Boys Tell might be better suited for the young adult crowd.

Synopsis: Penn and Copeland, Cope for short, have been best friends since they were kids. But at 16, Penn went and ruined it all by kissing Cope. Now, two years later, they’re enemies. But Penn hasn’t stopped loving Copeland, even when it’s apparent that Cope hates him. But then a fight changes everything and Cope accepts Penn back in his life. And Cope appears to be ready for more even when claiming he’s not gay. D-sucking. Angst. More sucking, more angst. Fights. Even more sucking. Happy happy. The end.

For young people I’m guessing this is a great story with lots of emotional ups and downs. There’s constant drama interrupted (regularly) only for enthusiastic sucking, licking or f*cking. The build up to the final blow-out is awesome and there’s the entire spectrum of supporting characters, from good friends and adversaries becoming allies to the evil end-of-level monster. It’s like the author vacuumed an average High school for angst and then poured it into this book. And that’s a five-star right there.

But… From my viewpoint – as an oldie – Wicked Lies Boys Tell was a bit over-the-top.

This story started out as a bully-romance (something I really dislike btw). Copeland is mean and cruel to Penn who just takes it as his due. He accepts whatever Copeland dishes out and counts himself lucky to garner the attention of his crush.

Then, when Penn gets hurt, Cope suddenly steps up and helps him. And suddenly they’re back to being besties again. Only with the twist consisting of Cope allowing Penn to touch him in all sorts of non-platonic ways while still expressing his disgust for him.

Yeah, that part really creeped me out.

That both their dads are pure evil doesn’t make the story more interesting in my eyes. In fact, Penn’s dad is so exaggeratedly demonic it tips the story over the edge from teenage angst-y to something from the Grimm fairytales – which obviously is impossible to take seriously. And to top it all off there’s the arranged marriage-thing. And I just thought enough already!

Finally, all the hard-ons were just excessive. It might be true that a stiff breeze is enough to have a teenage male ready to go, but as an adult reader, all those stiffies got boring pretty fast.

There’s no question that it’s excellent writing on Webster’s part. However, this story wasn’t meant for me, or – I’m guessing – readers who have passed their twenties. As an oldie, I rate this as a three point fiver. But since I’d give it a 5 as a YA read, I’ll settle for an overall 4-star rating.