The Secrets of Lily Graves

With the intrigue of Pretty Little Liars and plenty of romance, bestselling author Sarah Strohmeyer weaves a story of secrets and lies—set in a funeral parlor. Growing up in a house of female morticians, Lily Graves knows all about buried secrets. She knows that perfect senior-class president Erin Donohue isn’t what she seems. She knows why Erin’s ex-boyfriend, hot football player Matt Houser, broke up with her. And she also knows that, even though she says she and Matt are just friends, there is something brewing between them—something Erin definitely did not like. But secrets, even ones that are long buried, have a way of returning to haunt their keeper. So when Erin is found dead the day after attacking Lily in a jealous rage, Lily's and Matt’s safe little lives, and the lives of everyone in their town of Potsdam, begin to unravel. And their relationship—which grew from innocent after-school tutoring sessions to late-night clandestine rendezvous—makes them both suspects. As her world crumbles around her, Lily must figure out the difference between truth and deception, genuine love and a web of lies. And she must do it quickly, before the killer claims another victim.

Whoever named this book needs to get fired.

Because The Secrets of Lily Graves? This girl ain't got no secrets! Not even one! Instead it was the people around her with the secrets!

The novel opens with Lily working in a graveyard when this crazy girl rolls up and is all,
"OMG! You stole my boyfriend!" and Lily (and the reader) is all, "What?"

Because if Lily doesn't know what she's talking about neither do we! So they get into a little fight before the crazy girl takes off.

It's not until after the fight we learn that the boyfriend (or now ex-boyfriend who's name is Matt) and Lily are not platonic friends like she was making it seem. Instead we have a little bit of emotional cheating going on. While Matt is with the Crazy Girl, he gets tutored and sends his afterhours all up in Lily's DM's when he should be with his girlfriend.

She's sat in his lap, there's some sexual tension but no actual physical touching. So I don't know why Lily was acting like she didn't know Matt was into her when she so knows.

Anyway, the next thing we know Lily's parents are telling her Crazy Girl Erin is dead. Not her parents I mean. Her mom and her mom's boyfriend, the town's chief of police.

There's two reason Lily knows this before anyone else in town.

1. See above about maternal boyfriend's career choice
2. Lily's mom and fam run this funeral home in their small town.

She's all in love with death and the color black and wants to go into this exact same career choice when she's older.

All I can think of is the smell those frogs you dissect in school smell like thinking about this, We don't learn if she has a particular reason of why she's in love with all-things-death, just that she is. So she wears black and lace all the time and people don't fuck with her.

Except Sara.

Sara is her best friend.

I remember wondering about Sara's parents but initially decided not to look at them because they seemed to be too wrapped in their religion (sometimes those are the worst ones) and...actually that may have been the only reason. The whole Erin interning at their place of work just seemed a little suspect to me but I should've stayed with that line of thinking.

But I shouldn't have. It turns out that Sara's dad and Erin were messing around. Then if I remember correctly either she gets pregnant and/or threatens to tell everyone so he kills her.

And not only does Sara know this but her mom does too. So when Lily Graves discovers this, her best friend and fam try to kill her.

Of course she doesn't die, the bad guys are arrested and she and stupid-boy live happily ever after.

The boring end.