Lauren Nossett

Never betray the brotherhood. On a chilly November morning at the University of Georgia, a college fraternity brother steps off a busy crosswalk and is struck dead by an oncoming car. More than a dozen witnesses all agree on two things: the driver looked identical to the victim, and he was smiling. Detective Marlitt Kaplan is first on the scene. A local and the daughter of a professor at the university, she knows all its shameful history. But in the course of investigating this hit-and-run, she will uncover more chilling secrets in the network of fraternities and sororities that entertain and delight the university's most elite, privileged and connected students. The lines between Marlitt's police work and her own past increasingly blur as she seeks to bring to justice an institution that took something precious from her many years ago. When threats against her escalate, and some long-buried secrets threaten to come to the surface, she can't help questioning whether the corruption in her home town has run off campus and into the force, and how far these brotherhoods will go to protect their own.

The Resemblance

I received an audio copy of this novel from the publisher, Macmillan Audio, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

 is not at all the story I was hoping for, and that’s on me for not doing more research. One of the blurbs proclaimed it “a fresh, haunting take on dark academia,” while the publisher blurb claimed it is “an exhilarating, atmospheric campus thriller reminiscent of 

.” I read those lines and was immediately sold. However, there’s nothing dark academia about this. There’s a murder on a college campus, yes, but that’s all it has in common with the subgenre, in my opinion. This is much more a mystery/police procedural with a campus setting than it is an actual campus novel. The comparisons to 

 feel wholly unfounded, as what made that book so special was the philosophy, the poetic writing, and the observations of one both inside a secret society and yet somehow on the periphery, as well as the inverted mystery where we know who did what from the beginning of the book and are endeavoring to learn the why. 

delivered none of that depth, none of those layers, and left me incredibly frustrated by the time I finally reached the end.

This is the story of Detective Marlitt Kaplin, who is incredibly eager to prove herself to her sexist boss and, when a hit-and-run murder almost literally falls in her lap while she’s visiting her professor mother on the University of Georgia campus, she’ll do anything to keep her claws in the case. I found Marlitt so intensely unlikable and unsympathetic that my feelings for her nearly devolved into hatred by the story’s end. Even when she faced horrible situations, I could find no empathy for her. For someone so determined to solve a murder, she did everything possible to sabotage herself and the case. Inside her head was an insufferable, infuriating place to be. And while her hatred for fraternities might have been well founded, her handling of that hatred in light of her job was laughably poor. 

There are certain thrillers where you can see the “twists” coming from a mile off, and this was one of those for me. An oblivious perspective character (I can’t bear to call her a protagonist) who is supposed to be intelligent and good at her job completely missing clues that are glaringly obvious to the reader is always an exasperating experience, one that occurred time and again for me while reading this. I will say that there was one final reveal at the end of the book that I didn’t predict, but it also had nothing to do with the rest of the story, relating solely to our main character. I think this reveal was supposed to shine a light on the inner workings of her subconscious, but it felt like a cheap trick for shock value to me.

The writing here was perfectly serviceable. There were a handful of instances of poetic, philosophical prose, but instead of adding to the story, they threw me out of it, as they in no way fit the story being told. It felt as if the author had thought of something pretty and profound and determined to shoehorn it in somewhere, regardless of how it distracted from the plot. These instances somehow felt both pretentious and clumsy, which is a really odd pairing. But other than the aforementioned handful of lines, the writing was good enough to keep me reading, in spite of my distaste.

I ran through a gamut of emotions from the time I first started this book to the moment I finally finished it. I went from being excited, to feeling cautiously optimistic that things would improve, to viewing the book as the epitome of adequate, to being so frustrated that I was audibly groaning and rolling my eyes at every decision Merlitt made. In spite of how it was billed, I haven’t read a book less “right for me” in quite some time. HOWEVER, I would like to point out that I have a very love/hate, hit-or-miss relationship with thrillers. So, if you’re a lover of thrillers looking for something set on a college campus, 

Celeste Richardson

I received an audio copy of this novel from the publisher, Macmillan Audio, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Resemblance is not at all the story I was hoping for, and that’s on me for not doing more research. One of the blurbs proclaimed it “a fresh, haunting take on dark academia,” while the publisher blurb claimed it is “an exhilarating, atmospheric campus thriller reminiscent of The Secret History.” I read those lines and was immediately sold. However, there’s nothing dark academia about this. There’s a murder on a college campus, yes, but that’s all it has in common with the subgenre, in my opinion. This is much more a mystery/police procedural with a campus setting than it is an actual campus novel. The comparisons to The Secret History feel wholly unfounded, as what made that book so special was the philosophy, the poetic writing, and the observations of one both inside a secret society and yet somehow on the periphery, as well as the inverted mystery where we know who did what from the beginning of the book and are endeavoring to learn the why. The Resemblancedelivered none of that depth, none of those layers, and left me incredibly frustrated by the time I finally reached the end.

This is the story of Detective Marlitt Kaplin, who is incredibly eager to prove herself to her sexist boss and, when a hit-and-run murder almost literally falls in her lap while she’s visiting her professor mother on the University of Georgia campus, she’ll do anything to keep her claws in the case. I found Marlitt so intensely unlikable and unsympathetic that my feelings for her nearly devolved into hatred by the story’s end. Even when she faced horrible situations, I could find no empathy for her. For someone so determined to solve a murder, she did everything possible to sabotage herself and the case. Inside her head was an insufferable, infuriating place to be. And while her hatred for fraternities might have been well founded, her handling of that hatred in light of her job was laughably poor. 

There are certain thrillers where you can see the “twists” coming from a mile off, and this was one of those for me. An oblivious perspective character (I can’t bear to call her a protagonist) who is supposed to be intelligent and good at her job completely missing clues that are glaringly obvious to the reader is always an exasperating experience, one that occurred time and again for me while reading this. I will say that there was one final reveal at the end of the book that I didn’t predict, but it also had nothing to do with the rest of the story, relating solely to our main character. I think this reveal was supposed to shine a light on the inner workings of her subconscious, but it felt like a cheap trick for shock value to me.

The writing here was perfectly serviceable. There were a handful of instances of poetic, philosophical prose, but instead of adding to the story, they threw me out of it, as they in no way fit the story being told. It felt as if the author had thought of something pretty and profound and determined to shoehorn it in somewhere, regardless of how it distracted from the plot. These instances somehow felt both pretentious and clumsy, which is a really odd pairing. But other than the aforementioned handful of lines, the writing was good enough to keep me reading, in spite of my distaste.

I ran through a gamut of emotions from the time I first started this book to the moment I finally finished it. I went from being excited, to feeling cautiously optimistic that things would improve, to viewing the book as the epitome of adequate, to being so frustrated that I was audibly groaning and rolling my eyes at every decision Merlitt made. In spite of how it was billed, I haven’t read a book less “right for me” in quite some time. HOWEVER, I would like to point out that I have a very love/hate, hit-or-miss relationship with thrillers. So, if you’re a lover of thrillers looking for something set on a college campus, The Resemblance just might be for you.

The Resemblance

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