Book Review: All the Beautiful Lies | Peter Swanson

Though some of the subject matter could be a but polarizing, ultimately I found that All the Beautiful Lies was a deeply thought-provoking character study that left me shocked with the ending twists. I wasn’t sure I’d like it based on other reviews, but I’m so glad I read it to form my own opinion!

The Characters

Alice is really the main character of the story, and ties together the past and present timelines. In the present storyline, Alice was married to Bill Ackerson who is murdered before the book begins, and is the stepmother to Harry Ackerson, a 21 year-old who is graduating from college. Harry meets Grace McGowan shortly after his fathers death, and later meets her sister Caitlin McGowan. In the past, Alice grows up with her best friend Gina. She also has a stepfather, Jake, who is married to her mother and is the only responsible parental figure in her life. Alice’s mother suffers from alcoholism.

What’s All the Beautiful Lies about?

In present day, Alice is grieving the death of her husband and trying to help his son Harry process the loss of his father, Bill. Harry is confused about Alice—he has always found her attractive, but doesn’t know her that well. Harry also meets a woman named Grace McGowan who he is interested in, but suspects she may be more connected to his family than she disclosed when they met. Harry is a bit lost following the death of his father, which comes right as he is graduating college and deciding what he wants to do with his life.

In the past, Alice is a teenager whose mother is an alcoholic. When Alice and her mother move to a new town early in high school, Alice has a troubling encounter with a boy that shapes how she interacts with friends in high school and how she forms relationships and romantic attachments. Shortly after moving, her mother meets and later marries a man named Jake, who becomes Alice’s stepfather is the only stable person in her life. Despite the book summary on Goodreads making it sound as though the present story is the main one, I would say Alice’s backstory is the prominent narrative and the most compelling of the novel. In the present, she’s an enigmatic figure Harry has complicated feelings for. In the past, Alice is a teenager lost to a mother who neglects her and disappoints her at every turn. Alice struggles with her relationships and operates primarily as a loner who learns to keep her family secrets close to herself.

What did I think?

I am a big fan of Peter Swanson so I was excited to go back and read the earlier books I missed. I knew going in that All the Beautiful Lies would be polarizing because it does (TW) touch on themes of grooming and relationships that may make many readers uncomfortable between stepparent and stepchild (though everyone is of legal age). The book summary is actually quite misleading, in my opinion. It talks about the book as though it is largely Harry’s story—a twenty-one year old whose father dies and who has a complicated attraction to his step mother Alice and another woman Grace.

However, Harry’s story is more minor than that. Harry isn’t remotely the main character here, Alice is. And the majority of Alice’s story has almost nothing to do with Harry. In fact, the scenes with Harry and Alice are few and far between. The majority of Alice’s story is actually about growing up and her relationship with her mother, her stepfather, and her peers her age. Alice’s story is one that will unfold across the book and I didn’t really know what to make of her until much later in the story. Alice is complicated, I wasn’t sure if I should be on her side or not until I saw everything with clarity in the final scenes. There were plenty of troubling moments from her childhood and young adulthood that made me question how much of Alice was truly her, and how much was how she learned to be by the mistreatment from others.

Final Thoughts

While this book won’t be for everyone, I thought there was a compelling message to take away from the story. I don’t want to say much more because I don’t want to spoil the twists. I couldn’t stop reading this, though at times I found certain elements to the plot disturbing. Ultimately, I concluded they were necessary for me to take from the story what I did. This is not a book where it is easy to unpack what you thought of each character, and that alone is a testament to Swanson’s storytelling.

If you liked All the Beautiful Lies, what should you read next?

About the Book | Goodreads

Harry Ackerson has always considered his step-mother Alice to be sexy and beautiful, in an “other worldly” way. She has always been kind and attentive, if a little aloof in the last few years.

Days before his college graduation, Alice calls with shocking news. His father is dead and the police think it’s suicide. Devastated, he returns to his father’s home in Maine. There, he and Alice will help one another pick up of the pieces of their lives and uncover what happened to his father.

Shortly after he arrives, Harry meets a mysterious young woman named Grace McGowan. Though she claims to be new to the area, Harry begins to suspect that Grace may not be a complete stranger to his family. But she isn’t the only attractive woman taking an interest in Harry. The sensual Alice is also growing closer, coming on to him in an enticing, clearly sexual way.

Mesmerized by these two women, Harry finds himself falling deeper under their spell. Yet the closer he gets to them, the more isolated he feels, disoriented by a growing fear that both women are hiding dangerous—even deadly—secrets . . . and that neither one is telling the truth.