Emma is on a quest to uncover the truth about what happened to her friends, but first, she has to wade through a web of lies and deception, some of which are of her own making. Characters lie on purpose, by omission, and by accident (e.g., when their beliefs prove misguided). Sometimes characters lie to hide things they are ashamed of, and sometimes they do so to disguise more sinister intentions. As Emma comes closer to the truth of the girls’ disappearance, the sheer multitude of lies and the ambiguity of characters’ reasons for promulgating them render the line between truth and falsehood increasingly hazy.

The motif of Two Truths and a Lie establishes the blurriness of the boundaries between what is real and what isn’t. As a girl at Camp Nightingale, Emma plays the game with her cabinmates. The game is Vivian’s favorite, and she teaches Emma that you “could learn more about a person from their lies than their truths” (92-93)—a counterintuitive claim that frames lies as more “real” than truth. She also insists that “the point of the game isn’t to fool others with a lie” but rather to “trick them by telling the truth” (94), further undercutting the idea that truth is simple and easy to discern.