** spoiler alert ** ********★★★ I really, really wanted to like this book, but I didn’t. I

** spoiler alert ** ********★★★ I really, really wanted to like this book, but I didn’t. I guess I expected it to be a little like The Serpent King, but other than the weirdly “religious” dad it was nothing like what I expected. First, the cover is actually pretty nice. It’s a dark matte red, the title is written in a way that the first line is Con, which I thought was fitting, and the ‘t’ is a cross—also, there is a car that has obviously been in an accident of some type, and illuminated by the headlights is “A lie will set him free.” Braden is a wealthy, white teenage boy, who happens to be a really good pitcher with a bright future in baseball. From the outside, Braden’s life looks pretty envy worthy—but things are never what they seem. Braden’s dad is abusive, manipulative, and just generally awful—not to mention he’s been accused of murdering a cop, because he did literally murder a cop. Braden does a lot of soul searching, he punishes himself for so many things, and he tries to bargain with God regularly throughout the story. He has been conditioned to think that everything that does wrong is his fault, and that if he were a better kid, a better pitcher, a better student, a better Christian—just generally better—then the bad things would be rectified. This book was incredibly realistic, but I guess I still hoped for something good to happen. I hated that Braden literally had no one tell him that the things happening weren’t his fault, and that no matter what he did terrible things would just happen sometimes. I was also incredibly disappointed that he chose to testify the way he did—though I likely would have done the same thing, if I am being honest. I had hoped for more from the ending, but realistically it was probably about as good as it could have been—anything different would not have fit with the rest of the story. -- source link

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