Synopsis:
Everyone knows, but no one talks.
Identical twins Dolores and Mita grow up in lockstep in rural Brazil, speaking their own secret language, dancing together, inseparable even when they sleep. But at age seven, they discover that Mita has a degenerative condition—and Dolores does not. On the cusp of adolescence, Mita’s illness becomes debilitating, and without telling Dolores, their parents send Mita across the Atlantic Ocean to a hospital in their father’s native London.
The rest of the family moves to Rio and begins to live a bourgeouis lifestyle, but Dolores is miserable there. She misses her small-town and most especially her twin, who her parents seem to have forgot ever existed. And she has no way to contact Mita—particularly since, at twelve years old, Dolores still cannot read or write. She is desperate to speak to her again—and desperately alone and unhappy at her posh new school. But everything begins to change when she meets a brave, headstrong girl from the favelas who shows Dolores a new side of Rio, and how to survive it.
Tensions are on the rise with the dictatorial government cracking down on protesters and dissenters. Both at home and in the country at large, there are cover-ups at play—and Dolores pushes to find the truth about right and wrong, her lost sister and her place in life. In a setting where repression and silencing were part of everyday life, Liar’s Dice is about the secrets we hold, both personal and political, and the consequences of keeping them. Atmospheric and intimate, Juliet Faithfull’s coming of age novel captures the intensity of forming your own identity, and the courage and love required to forge a different life.
My Edition:
Net Galley ARC
My Thoughts:
I was invited to review Liar’s Dice by the book’s publisher. Which was my good fortune, because I probably wouldn’t have picked it up on my own, but I’m really glad I read it. Liar’s Dice is a beautiful story.
Although the marketing intern that sent me the invite compared it to Victor Lavalle’s Lone Women (which I reviewed here), which I wildly disagree with (genuinely unsure how they came up with that particular comparison, as I detected zero similarities beyond that they are both period pieces containing human characters), it was still very good. Oh – wait: I think I actually just figured out why they chose Lone Women (sorry, going slightly stream-of-consciousness here). It’s the sisters thing. It’s a story about the bonds of sisterhood. Got it. I still think it’s a bit of a misleading comparison though. I was expecting a very different type of sisterhood based on that comparison.
Although….
Oh no – is this going to turn into a comparison of the two stories? Maybe a little bit. I’m sorry. Writing this out is helping me finally get what they were laying down. I promise though, this will still totally be a review of Liar’s Dice.
So, I’m thinking that Dolores and Adelaide Henry (from Lone Women) actually have a lot in common in that because of the fate’s of their sisters, they have to grapple with feelings of deep, maybe even existential shame while navigating and surviving increasingly harsh realities. For Adelaide, that’s trying to start her homestead in Montana in the early 1900s as a lone Black woman. For Dolores, that backdrop is Rio during the early 1970s under an increasingly volatile dictatorship.
And frankly, Dolores’ reality is not any less terrifying than Adelaide’s. Although to be perfectly clear: Liar’s Dice is not a horror story. Lone Women is. Liar’s Dice is regular fiction. It just doesn’t pull many punches when it comes to the realities of life under a dictator. There are some violent situations that Dolores comes in contact with.
Okay, I think I’ve gotten that out of my system. On to the regular review!
I really enjoyed the way that Faithfull wrote and developed her characters. Everyone had an arc, but nobody’s arc was overwrought. Everyone grew in believable ways given the relatively short time span the novel covers. Dolores was a girl mired in survivor’s guilt after Mita got sick, then she had to deal with, what to her, was essentially the disappearance of her other half. Her parents had to deal with their own guilt where Mita was concerned. Dolores had to deal with the guilt that came from “replacing” Mita with her new friend Andrea. And everyone had to deal with the volatility of Brazil at the time – revolutions and all.
I found myself relating to and empathizing with every single character in Liar’s Dice. But I found the fallout and eventual resolution of Dolores’ family problems extremely cathartic.
Overall, Liar’s Dice is an emotionally riveting piece of work, and a stunning debut by Juliet Faithfull.
Rating:
Liar's Dice
By Juliet Faithfull
Random House
ISBN: 9798217153886
Published: April 28, 2026
Hardcover, Paperback, E-book, Audio
384 Pages
