First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
That'll teach me to trust Reese Witherspoon
There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite.
-Paul Gaugin
Usually, writing these reviews comes fairly easily to me. There’s work in the diction, in trying to make the review engaging enough to keep reading, in finding other media to accompany it, and so on. The actual thoughts and insights though, they are there during the reading of the book. This bit is just committing it to a form that others can understand.
Starting the review for First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston has me staring at a blank screen for a long, long time.
Why? Amazon chose it as an editor’s pick for “Best Books Of The Year 2024”. It was selected as part of Reese Witherspoon’s book club. A #1 New York Times Bestseller. It sold over a million copies. So why do I have so little to say about it?1
Because the most interesting thing about it is that this book, which is 100 cliches and tropes hiding in a trench coat, somehow fooled all of those folks into thinking it was more than it is. It’s not bad, its just not good. It’s mediocre, and to end this section the way it began:
“There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.”
-Duke Ellington
Hey did you know you can now use the links on this review and the “Get The Books!” page above to support the site at no cost to you? Well, you can. For example, you can buy this book here!
Spoiler-Free Summary
Evie Porter is living an Instagram-worthy life in Louisiana with her boyfriend Ryan. Unfortunately for all involved, Evie Porter isn’t real. She is a false identity concocted to spy on Ryan by her employer, Mr. Smith. Just as “Evie” is starting to question the morality of all this, her true and fake identities collide and push her to decide just what direction her life will go in next, if she has a life to save after this is all done.
What Worked
I wouldn’t say that Ashley Elston is a poor writer by any means. The prose here is more than competent and flows easily. Is she the next William Faulkner? No, but that’s ok. A quick diversion, if you’ll indulge me.
It is my contention that books (or television or music or whatever) should be judged on what they are trying to be. Not every bit of media has to be the highest form of art, nor should it be. How exhausting would that be? There is ample room in this life for the beach read, the comfort watch, the background music, and for all of them to coexist with the challenging, world-changing, high art of the world. There’s also an infinite amount of space between those two poles, and on either side of them. “In the world there must surely be of all sorts”, as Don Quixote said2.
Further, Oscar Wilde opined that art says more about the observer than the artist3, and I think that is also true. If you judge an airport romance novel for not being To The Lighthouse, that says more about your state of mind than it does the author of either work. Read what you want to read when you want to read it, and judge a book by the merits of it’s own milieu. There’s plenty to criticize about First Lie Wins that doesn’t rag on it for being a sexy thriller beach read. With that, lets get back to it.
Ok, where was I? Oh, yes, the writing is easy and smooth, the characters distinct, and the plot moves along at a good clip. That’s not easy to accomplish nor should be overlooked. My hat is decisively tipped.
There are some scenes here that really sing. What especially comes to mind are scenarios wherein a group of people are talking and each is talking around secrets they harbor while trying to elucidate the hidden agendas of the others. It’s a sort of updated “bomb under the table” scenario where each character has a loaded gun under the table and is deciding where to point it, but none of them know the others have one as well. It’s high tension and high fun.
What Didn’t Work
Here’s a list of spy/thriller tropes and cliches I noticed while reading (click any to learn more):
That’s just off the top of my head. Now, look, I don’t think an author needs to avoid every trope out there. Humans have been writing down stories for a long time, and things that work tend to work, and I’m sure its nigh impossible to write a novel completely devoid of ideas that have been used before. However, that is a long list up there.
Not only that, but those are all the main crux of the story. It’s built around these concepts, and (going back to the discourse above) it doesn’t seem to be aware of it. That is the true sin here. There is a way to write a story that celebrates or mocks these commonly seen ideas, with the key element that you must be cognizant of what you’re doing, and so must the audience.
You see this a lot in spoof comedies like Airplane! or Archer. They purposely employ these tropes, but then exaggerate them far beyond any reasonable limit. You, the audience, feel the intention and can then settle in for the ride.
Not so with First Lie Wins, where you’re just left with a feeling that you’ve seen this all before. It’s to the point that the plot twists are very predictable. What’s worse, the few twists you may not see coming, you won’t care about when they arrive.
Ok, point made. Let’s move on to my other big problem with this book which are two characters, Rachel and Devon. Up first, Rachel. Rachel is introduced early on in the book as a skeptical member of Ryan’s friend group who is socially abrasive, which earns Evie’s respect even as Evie does her best to shame Rachel and shut her down. She then disappears for the next 80% of the book, before reappearing for completely no reason at all as Evie’s lawyer. Her presence makes no impact on Evie’s story. Maybe there’s some value in those early scenes, demonstrating Evie’s skill at assessing and navigating social situations that could blow her cover. Perhaps if we had left Rachel back in those first few chapters, she’d be a minor victim of Evie’s schemes and served her purpose as a minor player in the novel. Elston’s choice to bring her back and prop her up as a force, to the point that Evie reveals much of her closely guarded secrets to Rachel at a moment’s notice, begs for Rachel to have some impact on the story. Alas, she is only good for raising her eyebrow skeptically at Evie, and then walking away.
Finally, Devon. Devon fits what Spike Lee famously referred to as “The Magical Negro”. We’re not told why Evie met him in the first place (though we are told how, oddly), nor what he gets out of his partnership with Evie. At all times, he serves as her deus ex machina, solving all her conundrums (but giving her the credit), and conjuring tech solutions out of thin air whenever she needs them. Here’s a list of things Devon is able to do in First Lie Wins:
Figure out the code to an impenetrable safe he’s never seen from his laptop miles away
Break through untraceable false identities to find the real person behind them
Procure advanced spy technology at a moment’s notice
Disable all electronics in a half mile radius with his phone
Disguise himself and get a job at any business required for the job at hand
Control a major city’s entire traffic camera network on the fly.
Here’s a list of things Evie can do for Devon:
Ignore all of his warnings and put him in harms way for something he has no stake in
Take credit for all of his work
Seems fair, no?
Devon is Elston’s get out of jail free card. Any corner she writes herself into, Devon gets her out of it with minimal effort. He has no motivation to help Evie, and we never once hear of anything she has done for him. At one point, Evie asks Devon about a family member of his. He mumbles some brief platitude. Evie immediately turns back to requesting extraordinary help from him. That’s the closest she ever comes to being an equal partner.
Audiobook Narration
This was an audiobook for me, narrated by Saskia Maaleveld, and her performance was very strong. Evie’s voice had a lovely southern twang and drawl. There’s emotion and appropriate intonation throughout. The only voice that I found to break my immersion was Ryan’s, who sounded like he had just recovered from a traumatic brain injury.
Anyway, I would gladly listen to Maaleveld perform another audiobook.
Personal Experience
When I finished First Lie Wins, my initial thought was, “Not bad. Not great, but not bad.” I was mentally writing a 3 star review (spoiler: I will not give it 3 stars). Then, as I started writing this and thinking more about it, the more disappointed I became. Elston has more talent than this novel would have you believe. If the ad copy is to be believed, this is her first foray into adult literature, having written a few well-received YA novels prior. I wouldn’t be surprised if her next novel is a winner but this one just left me feeling deflated and, worse, bored.
Rating
First Lie Wins, you had 3 star potential. Hell, you could have stretched for a 4. Instead, you have been awarded a lowly 2/5 top-tier disguises:
Next Up
I’m excited for this next one because I get to use the word “epistolary” a lot!
Until then, don’t call me Shirley.
And yet, somehow, I’ll write 2000 words or so about it.
Did you know Don Quijote is the origin of this phrase, often Americanized to “It takes all kinds”? Because I sure didn’t until just now.
He said it much more eloquently, and with much more verbosity, in “The Critic As Artist”, in 1890.