Zach's Lie, a review by Brandon

Title: Zach's Lie
Author: Roland Smith
Format: paperback
Length: 211 pages
Price: $3.99

I finished reading the book Zach's Lie by Roland Smith in about four days.  The book has a third person narrator, and every chapter begins with one of Zach's journal entries.

The book starts out with Zach's (who is actually known as Jack in this part of the book) retelling of the night when three men came into his house and warned him, his sister, and his mother not to go to the police.  The police arrive on their own and ask what happened.  When they discover that Zach's father is in DEA custody, they decide to stop keeping quiet.  As a precaution, the DEA has to relocate the Osbourne family in the witness protection program.

They are moved to Elko, Nevada, and have no contact with their previous friends and family.  They are now known as the Grangers, and Jack's name becomes Zach.  But they haven't seen the end of those three men that came to their house in the night.

Zach starts out extremely upset and skeptical about moving to Elko, Nevada, but ends up liking it.  He grows up about the whole situation towards the end of the book.  He grows to like Nevada because the new friends he makes and well, I guess the food.  If given the chance to move back home, I think he would stay in Elko.

This book teaches that moving is not always a bad thing because you still make more friends.

I liked that the book wasn't too long, but it was pretty quick, and I felt like there should be more so I guess it's a good thing they made a sequel called Jack's Run.  It was very suspenseful and even was able to spark emotion in the reader, and I liked it a lot.  I suppose that's all thanks to Roland Smith's excellent writing.

Zach's Lie ended with a major cliff-hanger, implying that there would be a sequel written.  I definitely want to read this sequel.

Rating:  I would give Zach's Lie 4 out of 5 chocolate bars
Cover thoughts:  the cover has a picture of Zach on the front with unnaturally blue eyes.  He actually has brown eyes but was to wear blue contacts.  I thought it was interesting that it related to the book in only that small of a way.
Appropriateness:  There was no sexual content or bad language in the entire book, and only one or a couple brief scenes of violence.

All in all, it was a pretty good book and very underrated.