Something's always been missing in 17-year-old Emma Paxton's life. And it's not just because her mother dropped her off at a friend's house when she was five and never bothered to come back. It's more than that. It's almost like a piece of herself is missing. When she sees a You Tube video of a girl being strangled, Emma's shocked - not just because of the violent images, but because the dead girl looks exactly like her. Even if the video's some kind of sick joke, one thing is certain: Somewhere out there, Emma has a twin sister.

Sutton Mercer, also 17, wakes up in a bathtub in a house she's never seen before. Primping in the mirror is a girl who looks exactly like her. Confused, Sutton tries to get the girl's attention, only to be completely ignored. No one in the house can see or hear her. Considering her body seems to be fading, Sutton can only come to one conclusion - she must be dead. Only she can't remember how it happened. She can barely remember anything. All she knows is that she's now somehow attached to her twin sister, a girl she never even knew existed until now.

As Emma digs into her long-lost sister's life, she discovers a girl living the kind of existence Emma's known only in her dreams. Sutton's beautiful, wealthy, popular, loved and, as far as she can tell, not dead. When she receives a Facebook message from Sutton, it's all the encouragement Emma needs - she hops a bus to Tucson. Before she knows what's happening, Emma finds herself living Sutton's life. Since Sutton is nowhere to be found, it's obvious that's something's happened to her, but what? Did she take off voluntarily, thinking that Emma could just step in and take her place or did someone steal Sutton's life from her? The more Emma learns about her sister, the stranger the whole situation gets. Can she figure out what happened to Sutton before she, herself, is discovered? Before she, too, disappears?

Sutton longs to help her sister, tries to remember, but everything's so hazy. Can she harness her beyond-the-grave powers to help Emma solve her murder? Or will she be forced to stand by and watch while someone kills her sister?

As intriguing as its premise is, The Lying Game by Sara Shepard falls flat due to poor execution. The writing's clumsy, the characters are almost wholly unlikable and the story goes nowhere fast. It's the first in a series of four books, so I didn't expect Emma to find the killer in the first book, but still, it seems like she makes no progress at all. Sutton's presence is just irritating since she does almost nothing to advance the story. If you can't tell, I found the whole novel frustrating. Still, I picked it up again after abandoning it twice, so I guess that says something. The premise continues to interest me, but the series doesn't. Frankly, I couldn't care less what happened to Sutton Mercer. And that's no lie.

(Readalikes: A little like The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold)

Grade: D

If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG-13 for language (1 F-bomb), sexual innuendo, and depictions of underrage drinking/smoking/drug use