Wherever Nina Lies

In the two years since her older sister Nina disappeared, Ellie Wrigley has been plagued with unanswered questions: why would Nina leave? Where is she now? Is she even alive? Everyone has given up on Nina, but Ellie can't let go. So when she finds a drawing, obviously done by Nina, in a thrift store, she commences a crazy, quirky cross-country journey in pursuit of Nina, following the clues she left behind with a most amazing guy she barely knows. But as Ellie gets closer and closer to Nina, she'll find that the truth about her vanishing may be more astonishing than she ever imagined. Lynn Weingarten has written a delightful, witty, zany, and heartfelt novel. Ellie is a very grounded and authentic character, and her pain at her sister's disappearance is very tangible. The book is peppered with clever clues that aren't too obvious and the book flows easily, bouncing around from one clue to the next, though it never feels like the story revolves around just those clues. Ellie's journey is about much more than just finding her sister: it's about love and grief and relationships and growing up as well. The mystery is solid and well devised and will keep you guessing up until the end, when a shocking twist is revealed that will make you want to reread the book to reexamine the clues and character motivations from an entirely new angle. Weingarten has a catchy, unforgettable style that varies easily from insightful and serious to wacky and hilarious and will make you laugh and think at the same time. Wherever Nina Lies is an entertaining and wonderfully written novel that will have you hooked right away.

I loved this book... Here are all the things that I loved about it (in addition to the drawings, which I thought were really cool. First, the friendship between Amanda and Ellie was so real; it really spoke to me--and a lot of times I feel like books about teenage girls. . . The friendships don't seem real at all. Your friends are just everything when you're a teenager and it's nice to see someone really those friendships for once. Um, and Sean was *expertly* done.... Okay I can't say more because it's supposed to be a mystery but really, good job. The whole thing is just really evocative... So many neat observations and sharp and bitter insights... And just moods and moments of realization are captured so well. It just feels like being that age , when everything is crazy and new and you know that it's new and that you're excited but you don't realize quite how much the newness of it is coloring your experiences of and your responses to everything. And you also don't realize how much and how permanently you're being formed. You just realize it afterwards. Reading the book it was like I knew exactly what summer the author was talking about you know? (Even though my sister never disappeared fortunately so I never went looking for her... Or on a road trip... I still felt like I knew EXACTLY what summer in my life the book was about. If that makes sense.) In addition, it was really very suspenseful. I could tell from the first awesome sentence that I was going to like the book, but I wasn't really expecting it to be genuinely suspenseful... I was impressed. I even had to do that thing that other people always yell at me for doing, where I got so anxious to know whether they would find Nina that I actually cheated and skipped a few pages at some point because I just had to know how the trip was going to end.... one way or another. In response to "A Road Trip Full of Twists and Turns" which I mostly agree with, but which said that things seemed to come together a little too neatly... Maybe it's just a subjective thing but I didn't feel that way as I read it. Actually it seemed to me like there were a lot of times when the clues really did run out.... But Ellie pushed harder and made it happen. The last thing is.... I actually read this already like a couple weeks ago (I read it all in one night by accident), and the thing that's really stuck with me, as "Courtesy of Teens Read Too" said, is Ellie's love for her sister, which is very deep and complicated and not always happy but still but rock-solid... Just like love within families really is. I actually have a younger sister not an older sister like Nina but... It was just very moving and I felt like it did give me some insight into the younger sibling's perspective. I felt like all the other good things in the book made it fun to read at the time, but that element made it stay with me even after the book was over.

Nina mysteriously left two years ago, and now her younger sister, Ellie, is searching for her lost sister. Even though Ellie's good friends, Amanda and Brad, say she should just give up, Ellie simply can't. This is her only sister. She can't go on through life without knowing what happened to Nina. So, after Ellie sees a drawing her sister did and a phone number on a piece of old cardboard, she starts hunting for Nina. Early on, Ellie meets the nice guy, Sean, who agrees to help a total stranger find her long-lost sister. The two travel cross-country, following clue after clue, in order to find Nina. Only when her search winds to an end does everything spin out of control. Is Sean really there to help her? Or does he have an ulterior motive? And what's the true story with Nina? Will Ellie ever be able to find her sister...alive? Lynn Weingarten writes a thrilling adventure of two teens traveling across the country in order to find a long-lost sibling. This book is full of humor, adventure, love, and devotion. The author creates a palpable love between two sisters that jumps from the pages of this book. Whether you have siblings or not, WHEREVER NINA LIES will be sure to grab all readers. Reviewed by: Steph

While going through a box of junk at a thrift shop Ellie finds a scrap of paper that has her portrait drawn on it--by her sister, who disappeared two years earlier. That startling clue leads her to a club her sister used to hang out at, and before she knows it, Ellie is driving across country with a boy she hardly knows, chasing a series of clues to her sister's wherabouts. I enjoyed the hunt for Nina, especially since the clues where not left deliberately. The idea that a person can unintentionally leave permanent marks of their presence is fascinating. The plot seems fairly predictable--though quite enjoyable--right up until a major plot twist happens. After that, things whirl around and leave you rapidly turning pages to find out what happens. The long-waited for explanation falls a bit flat, since it requires no effort on Ellie's part to learn. The clues don't fit together to equal "what happened", and in the end, she merely sits and listens while the story is told to her. Even so, the story is well worth reading, and I think teenagers would especially enjoy it.

It's been two long years since Ellie's older sister Nina has disappeared. Pretty much everyone has given up any hope that Nina will return, but not Ellie. Ellie can't bear to think Nina, her sister whom she loves and idolizes, could be dead. Ellie desperately wants to find Nina, and when she stumbles upon a portrait of her, drawn by Nina, she's certain she's found her clue. With the help of a hot and mysterious stranger named Sean, Ellie sets off on a seemingly wild-goose chase for the whereabouts of her sister. But Ellie isn't prepared for what she learns along the way, regarding her sister and her new love interest Sean. In this suspenseful and fast-paced debut, readers will be swept along with Ellie as she journeys and finds love, lies, and the strength of sisterhood. I was immensely impressed with this solid debut novel. Weingarten shows a mastery of her skill with words, especially when manipulating the plot. Ellie's cross-country escapade was filled with humor and lust yet also disappointment, anticipation for the next clue, confusion, and danger. I like how the story strings the reader along nicely and then twists nearly completely around. In the back of my mind, I think I expected part of the outcome of Ellie's journey, but I was still shocked when it actually happened. I also really liked the development of both Ellie's and Nina's characters. Ellie is easy to relate to, especially in her sisterly affection, friendship dilemmas, and thoughts of self-preservation, and this increases the reader's sympathy for her as well as interest in her story. The reader gets to know Nina mainly through Ellie's memories and thoughts of her sister, and it creates an image of a wild yet thoughtful girl anyone can love. Some of the minor details of this novel, though, were not as well executed as the plot and development of the major characters. There were some details that never completely added up. Also, Ellie's relationship with her best friend Amanda seemed strange at times, and their problems seemed to magically disappear at the end of the novel. Other than these few aspects, Wherever Nina Lies was an extremely well-written and enjoyable story. Wherever Nina Lies is very impressive for a first novel, and I hope Weingarten plans to write more novels especially if they're as good as this one. Readers will see this novel as a hybrid between two fantastic novels, How to Be Bad and The Year My Sister Got Lucky, and will not be disappointed in this fantastic story of mystery, romance, suspense, and, most of all, sisterhood.