Feeding on Lies

You remember those songs, Tell Me a Lie and Tender Lie?  Both sad, country songs about wanting to hear a lie instead of the truth, for the benefit of one's heart.  I can see the desire to want to hear a tender lie.  I have asked for a tender lie, many, actually, before, to be honest.  The lies that the Lie Tree likes in the book by the same name are different, but the tree does want lies.  

The Lie Tree in TLT is strengthened, grows from the spread of lies.  And the lies have to be lies that people want to hear.

This is a big book.  A deep kinda book, I think.  Too deep for me, really.  I didn't like it too much as it really isn't my "go-to" type of book.  It isn't set in America, it is set on an island called Vane, which I am not sure exists, but it is somehow related to England in the book.  Also it is set during the Victorian Era, which I know was a very important time and so forth and I know many people like Victorian stories, but I am not one of them, at all.  So this book had a lot stacked against it, for me.  I say that all in defense of the book.  I say it just to say that I am not the best person to judge a book like this.  For me, it was just too much to overcome.  The author, Frances Hardinge, is very well acclaimed and the book itself won the 2015 Costa Award.  I am so unqualified to judge this book that I didn't know what the Costa Award was!  

Most people really seem to love this book!  And the few people that didn't, at least on goodreads, criticized it for things that I really didn't think were a big problem, like the gal who complained that unlike the females in Pride and Prejudice (which I haven't read either and have no desire to read, again, an example that I am not the one to judge this book) the main character in this book just hid around and seemed to take her position in life for what it was and not stand up to the sexism of the time.  I didn't really see that as a criticism.  

I just really didn't care too much about the main character, whose name I have forgotten, sadly, and I didn't care for her dad, who was a minister and a scientist and I didn't care for the whiny little brother.  At first I didn't like the mom, either.  But then I figured that she was just doing the best that she could, given the position of women in society at that time.  If this wins the Printz, I am sure it is deserved.  It won the Costa Award, right?  But I will personally sad because this book was very hard to suffer through for me.  Although I don't know how it could fit this particular part of the criteria: Inspire wider readership in the genre.  But again, that's just me.