Carola Lovering

“A twisted modern love story” (Parade), Tell Me Lies is a sexy, thrilling novel about that one person who still haunts you—the other one. The wrong one. The one you couldn’t let go of. The one you’ll never forget. Lucy Albright is far from her Long Island upbringing when she arrives on the campus of her small California college and happy to be hundreds of miles from her mother—whom she’s never forgiven for an act of betrayal in her early teen years. Quickly grasping at her fresh start, Lucy embraces college life and all it has to offer. And then she meets Stephen DeMarco. Charming. Attractive. Complicated. Devastating. Confident and cocksure, Stephen sees something in Lucy that no one else has, and she’s quickly seduced by this vision of herself, and the sense of possibility that his attention brings her. Meanwhile, Stephen is determined to forget an incident buried in his past that, if exposed, could ruin him, and his single-minded drive for success extends to winning, and keeping, Lucy’s heart. Lucy knows there’s something about Stephen that isn’t to be trusted. Stephen knows Lucy can’t tear herself away. And their addicting entanglement will have consequences they never could have imagined. Alternating between Lucy’s and Stephen’s voices, Tell Me Lies follows their connection through college and post-college life in New York City. “Readers will be enraptured” (Booklist) by the “unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story” (Kirkus Review). With the psychological insight and biting wit of Luckiest Girl Alive, and the yearning ambitions and desires of Sweetbitter, this keenly intelligent and supremely resonant novel chronicles the exhilaration and dilemmas of young adulthood and the difficulty of letting go—even when you know you should.

A Novel

Tell Me Lies

mady hughes 

This is in the same boat as Rivals for me. I'll probably enjoy the show more

Annabella

Demi k

Lane Hokanson

Alright, I fully admit that part of the reason I hated this book was because it reminded me of my ex-boyfriend. And in that sense, maybe it was a successful story because I do think it would resonate with a lot of women. However, the arc of the story felt slow and the flashbacks were flat. I read it in advance of watching the tv version on Hulu, but I'm not sure how it'll translate and if it'll come off better or worse.

Jenna Pascale 

3.5/5 rounded up to 4 

Fair warning: this is not a romance novel - this book covers the backstory of a toxic relationship, destructive behaviors, and everything in between. 

This book was not what I expected and I can’t say if that’s because of my own doing or if it’s just portrayed to be something it’s not. 

This is my second book by Carola Lovering. It didn’t blow me away - but it kept me reading. Some parts of this were hard to read mainly because of my own personal experiences. It was frustrating to be on the outside looking in of a relationship like this. I found myself frustrated and irritating with the characters pretty much from cover to cover. 

I found some parts to be highly repetitive- circling the same story but at different points in the timeline. I also felt it was dragged out a bit. More back story than anything else - I would have liked to see more of Lucy’s current POV. 

Overall, I enjoyed the read despite being frustrated. It was harder to get through since this isn’t my typical type of read but I would definitely recommend to someone who enjoys romance type reads who isn’t looking for a traditional romance.

This book is good if you relate to ‘dating’ a horrible masochistic sociopathic boy but if not, it makes you irrationally angry and you’ll find yourself unsatisfied at the end 

Kaitlyn Dodos

Named a Best Book of Summer by Parade * Refinery29 * PopSugar * Bustle * Working Mother * Town & Country * Thought Catalog * PureWow * Betches * Literary Hub * Brides “Think: The Affair meets Animal House meets your beach bag. Get into it.”—TheSkimm “A twisted modern love story.” —Parade “Everything you could ever want in a summer read.” —USA TODAY Everyone remembers the one. No, not that one. The other one. The one you couldn’t let go of. The one you’ll never forget. Lucy Albright is far from her Long Island upbringing when she arrives on the campus of her small California college, and happy to be hundreds of miles from her mother, whom she’s never forgiven for an act of betrayal in her early teen years. Quickly grasping at her fresh start, Lucy embraces college life and all it has to offer—new friends, wild parties, stimulating classes. And then she meets Stephen DeMarco. Charming. Attractive. Complicated. Devastating. Confident and cocksure, Stephen sees something in Lucy that no one else has, and she’s quickly seduced by this vision of herself, and the sense of possibility that his attention brings her. Meanwhile, Stephen is determined to forget an incident buried in his past that, if exposed, could ruin him, and his single-minded drive for success extends to winning, and keeping, Lucy’s heart. Lucy knows there’s something about Stephen that isn’t to be trusted. Stephen knows Lucy can’t tear herself away. And their addicting entanglement will have consequences they never could have imagined. Alternating between Lucy’s and Stephen’s voices, Tell Me Lies follows their connection through college and post-college life in New York City. With psychological insight and biting wit, this keenly intelligent and staggeringly resonant novel chronicles the yearning ambitions, desires, and dilemmas of young adulthood, and the difficulty of letting go, even when you know you should.

Haylie

Pros
- Great characterization
- Great character development (and lack thereof - intentionally)
- Accessible voice; conversational, refreshing, mostly realistic
- I appreciate the two "twists", even if I did guess the first one right away

Cons
- Macy Peterson deserved something a little more. Like, I don't want to give it away, but her outing was a little dumb.
- Really suspended my disbelief in some aspects of the book and it was a little old (cocaine...in the 2010's? This is the time for weed and Adderall, y'all, Macy Peterson's deal "that night", Lucy and Macy's connection in the afterward, etc.)
- There were parts of this book that I could remove and it would still maintain the same plot. This is nearly a 400-page book with 4 parts. Dividing into parts wasn't really necessary.
- The story begins in the present day and ends (in an afterward) in the present day. I found the return to the present from the flashbacks to be a little jarring.

A little predictable and repetitive at times, BUT I love the story. Spot on for a toxic relationship and you find yourself tangled in Lucy & Stephen’s narrative. 

Zoey Novak

Legit the worst book I have ever read. Both main characters are whiny little bitches about situations they put themselves into over and over again. It’s a painful cycle that keeps repeating every couple of chapters. I recommend this book to no one and will put it as one of the worst books I have ever read for the rest of my life. Utterly insufferable. 

Melissa Clark 

Shan

Took me a while to get into it & felt as though the ending didn't quite answer all of my questions. However, I think this story would have been perfect for me when I was in highschool.

Arianna scasino

This book just make feel really sad about a recent breakup. Also I felt really sad and nostalgic about college. 

Suz Corso

This was my favorite book I read in 2020. The writing style was immaculate, easy to follow, and enticing, and I think any woman who has had a complicated ex/relationship would relate so tragically to this book. I would recommend any 18+ woman out there to read this book - it is pretty heavy on romance/sexual relationships but it just felt very raw and real in which I felt like I was reading my own diary at some points (lol). I read this book because Ellie Schnitt recommend it and I would read it over and again. I will say that the narrative the author takes on about Lucy "not being like other girls" and having control over her food, always focusing on being skinny and naturally pretty, got a little tiring but it can be overlooked. I think this book is very surface level but still somehow so addicting. It is very similar to a Pretty Little Liars/Gossip Girl type of book.

Lauren Attaway

I heard so much about the asshole (sorry) in this book when my hold from the library got in I cued this audiobook up just in time for another stack of other work to come in. I read a great article by Carola about her own experience that made me make the time to finish this Tell Me Lies in a few listens. 
My biggest takeaway, after reading the article where the author talks about all of the women who say, "I've dated this man" and my own feelings/memories about similar toxic relationships is that we all go through the experience of learning what no to tolerate in relationships. The main character Lucy spends her college and several early years being pulled in and discarded by an older classmate Stephen, who is so studied in the ways of manipulation at a young age that it's particularly horrifying. The great gift of this book is in that even as we watch Lucy screw up her own life in the pursuit of a guy, we can't look away from this mess. I'm going to bookmark this to recommend for the next person I know who goes through a bad breakup or is struggling to move on. It's certainly a quick, unputdownable summer read.

Melea Mullican

Check out my video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46OV9... (available 8/16)

How do I begin this review? This book was pretty complex for me as far as my opinion, making it difficult to put my thoughts into words. 

TELL ME LIES is written from multiple time lines that flow seamlessly from one into the next. We begin with Lucy in present day on her way to a wedding where she will see Stephen, her ex-lover, again for the first time in years. This sets off a chain of memories from college that recollects how their relationship played out. Readers will get both present and past Lucy POVs and Stephen's past POV. I liked this take on how the book was written. For the most part, it was told from the past moving toward present day, but occasionally, Lovering would flip back to the present to give you current day Lucy's thoughts on what happened back then while at the wedding with her friends.

Now onto the complicated part...Let's start with characters. I didn't hate Lucy. I felt sorry for her, but didn't hate her. To me, she was one of the more realistic characters. Everyone knows that when you start college, it is easy to fall into things that you never thought you would have done, things you never wanted to do, just because everyone around you says, "try it." Lucy quickly falls victim to this, and spirals more as the book continues on. I did find that her being (view spoiler)[ anorexic  (hide spoiler)] really did not make much sense. One conversation spiraled her into this, and then, all of a sudden after graduation it isn't an issue anymore. I also found that it didn't really add much to the story other than an attempt to cover everything a freshman college girl might experience when it came to boys.

I didn't like Stephen at all, which was the point, I know, but let me tell you why it didn't work for me. TELL ME LIES is focused on that one guy that sent you into a spiral. That one guy that was bad for you and you couldn't let go. It is intended to be shocking, yet relatable. The relatable part is where Stephen fell really short for me. He is a sociopath plain and simple. I feel that Lovering was trying to demonize him too much and took it a little too far for me to say, "YES! 'That guy' for me was exactly like that!" and I felt like that was the whole point of the book. Do guys date girls just for sex? Absolutely. But I don't feel like they are as apathetic about life in general as Stephen. I dated plenty of bad guys in my day, sure, but most of them were still human and capable of emotional connections even if it wasn't with me. Lovering does touch on Stephen's past and why he may be the way he is, but his attitude toward these circumstances led me to believe it wasn't the cause, but more of something that made it worse. He isn't relatable for me (I couldn't say that I knew anyone like him in college), and that is why I had a hard time becoming fully invested in his character as a villain. 

While I liked the structure of the story, I felt like a lot of what happened was repetitive and drawn out. For me, I could have gotten the same sense of Lucy and Stephen's relationship in half the pages. this made it hard for me to devour the book like I was hoping to. However, I enjoyed the way things wrapped up at the end. It was a very powerful female moment that will have readers saying, "Yes girl!" 

Overall, TELL ME LIES just was not my cup of tea. I understand where the author was going with it, but I dd not feel like it was a very accurate portrayal of the relationship that went wrong. Sometimes it seemed like she went a bit farther than what was probably true just for the sake of shock and awe. I likely will not recommend this book to others; however, I did enjoy Lovering's writing and structure style enough to give another book by her a try in the future.

Ana Couto

Minireview — I read “Tell Me Lies” by Carola Lovering earlier in the summer, and I absolutely loved it. It’s about a young woman who enters a toxic relationship in her freshman year of college, and how the emotional abuse she suffered continues to affect her years after finishing her studies. It’s recommended for fans of Colleen Hoover’s “It Ends With Us.”

Milana Marie Waller

it wasn't really so much of a story so much as a collection of thoughts. I highlighted a ton from start to finish. I wasn't really addicted to reading the book; it took me a good amount of time to finish. It was interesting to read from Stephens perspective, how he knew exactly what to say to girls to get what he wanted. I felt like it was overall very realistic and just kind of makes you think. Basically it said that happiness was not an achievable goal, but rather a mindset.

i read this book much earlier this year, and i just picked it up randomly, but here's some of the quotes i had highlighted:

page 18- "-probably because i've always lacked that i don't give a fuck quality in myself. Even if i don't want to give a fuck, even if i convince myself i don't, i always do."

i highly relate to this. I feel like this is almost always a more feminine trait. Men are constantly telling women that they shouldn't care what people think, yet most of the time they're the ones who manipulate us into being this way. Imagine a world where women didn't care what men thought of them. This wouldn't be problematic whatsoever for females, but instead for males, whose egos would shrink from the size of an elephant to the size of an ant without women fighting for their attention.

ig i didnt highlight for a while then...

page 110- "It's funny-when you get what you want, it almost automatically decreases in value."

anticipation is the key to worth. Satisfaction exists shortly, its sole purpose really to lead to more wanting, and more short fixes of satisfaction, and so forth. 
For example: shopping. After going on a shopping spree, we're left satisfied with all our products. But it's not like this stops us from wanting to go shopping again later. Of course not. The satisfaction wears off and we go shopping again. And again. Over and over. A repetitive cycle that isn't necessarily always harmful, but unavoidable.

page 118- " a lot can change in fifteen hours, i learned that night"

change happens so fast, we usually can't even see it. it isn't until later we reminisce and realize how lucky we were before the rapid shift we couldn't prepare for if we tried. Nostalgia is nostalgia because the best moments have to be taken advantage of, otherwise we couldn't fully be living in them.

page 120- "so many peeople end up finding such comfort, even contentment, in their misery"

i feel like a lot of people use sadness as a topic of conversation rather than an actual emotion. its not meant to manipulate. Pure sadness isn't screamingly obvious. Think about comedians. Constantly taking shots at themselves. And t make other people laugh at that.

page 154- "something so attractive about a broken person"

FLAWS AND SINS BY JUICE WRLD
imperfections suggest vulnerability, which suggests trust, which makes people feel needed. feeling needed is a crucial aspect in a relationship really

page 173- "it's only when you do let this stuff happen to you that you realize your morals and actions are not as aligned as you'd hoped.- Lust and love erase ethical parameters, and that's just the way it is."

It's easy to judge a toxic relationship from the outside looking in, but it's a completely different animal actually being inside the feelings and outside of the practical thoughts that everyone throws at you.

page 182- "i hated that he had all the control"

page 200- "i reminded myself that i was supposed to hate him for the way he treated me, and that any self-respecting girl would instinctively loathe him. Except i didn't hate him at all. I loved him. I knew now more than ever, and it wasn't a choice. It was just the truth."

The people you love the most should have the most power to hurt you. Making yourself hate someone that hurt you feels necessary, when really, it's just you caring what they think to the extent of blaming them for the pain your love for them caused yourself. Your dependency on someone else isn't necessarily their fault. If you give someone your heart, it's theirs to break. 

page 204- "I don't know what it is about you. About you and me."

page 205- "Everything I had wanted to hear, lying on a silver platter."

page 207- "I wanted him even when I had him. Too much wasn't enough."

That was the different between Lucy and Stephen. Lucy wanted Stephen always, and Stephen wanted Lucy when he couldn't have her. Neither tried to feel either way, they just did.

page 243- "It always boggled my mind the way the majority of individuals sit around waiting for the next event, and the next - subconsciously waiting for life to end."

Basically, you choose how your life goes, the universe doesn't choose for you. I don't think this is entirely true. Life is like one of those books where you have three choices and you choose one and from there the butterfly effect just continues.

page 244- "i still wanted to know how 'i love you' could be more than just spoken words"

page 274- "so many people are petrified of science, of its harshness, but i take solace in it. It is the only truth we have. One plus one equals two. The world is so fucking simple when you break it down."

Simplicity and complexity aren't measurable; both are really just a way of looking at things. I could look at a milkshake and either think "oh look its a milkshake" or i could think about all the ingredients that go into a milkshake, who made the milkshake, how much it cost, where the ingredients were bought, what cow made the milk, how old the milkshake is... I mean there's an infinite amount of questions I could ask about a milkshake, and some of them I could probably never find an answer to even if i tried.

page 279- "i was delirious and idiotic and naive and irresponsible and self-destructive, and i knew all of that. But none of it weighed against what i actually felt. Do you follow your head or your heart? Which would you do? Your heart, always. Right? I didn't think I would ever stop believing that. I was old enough to know it was a rare feeling to like someone maximum amount. Anybody would be lucky to feel the way I did."

Some people fall in love easily, and some people are insanely picky. The picky ones are the ones that have a harder time letting go of the ones they end up actually liking, just because it's so rare for them to find someone they like, so one they do, they go all in.

page 287- "God I hate when girls are passive-aggressive, which they are constantly. It always requires some kind of emotional coddling."

Girls want to be valued enough to be figured out.

page 288- "you always talk about things as if it's all a matter of convenience"

page 302- "Why was i still chasing him? Did i even LIKE him as a person? How could i bank on a future with someone i couldn't trust?.... if everything in the world was separated into black and white, into good and bad, Stephen would fall into bad."

I DONT LIKE YOU by grace vanderwaal

page 312- "the problem with girls is they always think there is something they can do to 'fix it' and there never is. The end is just the end; it doesn't mean anything and it isn't necessarily the result of something. It isn't a decision so much as a natural alteration. Change is instinctual."

I think a lot of people think this, but don't realize they think this, and end up just sounding cruel when trying to explain their sudden lack of feeling.

page 336- "but isn't the whole point to believe that people can change? To believe that we can all become better versions of ourselves? Otherwise, what hope is there for anybody?"

People have to change on their own terms; if someone feels pushed to change, they won't. No one likes to feel judged.

page 349- "it was in moments like this that time seemed to stop- moments so vividly painful, almost surreal in the pain that they promised. My insides lurched. My breath slipped out of my throat and I thought I was going to choke. Every part of my body went numb, and i had the sensation that i was in a lucid dream."

page 352- "there was always good in love. There had to be. But then maybe there wasn't, and maybe that was the whole problem with the world."

There is no agreeable definition for the word love. Does it mean 'I need you'? If so, does that mean being loved is only valuable based on other peoples' dependency on you? That can't be it. Could it mean " i value you"? Again, they say the world revolves around love, but if loves translates to value, and people value one another, would that not be selfish? To care for someone because YOU value them, and crave their company. Because they benefit you. So you value them because they make YOU happy. So is love selfish? Or should love mean your wanting to make someone else happy? Is there even a right answer, probably not.


page 357-"Love- real love- isn't something you construct or hope or imagine or plan for the future. Love is something you live and feel in real time, in every moment, big or small. It's reciprocal and often unglamorous. But we bank on it because it's what gives life meaning."

page 368- "the relief that i'm over him doesn't make me want to sing from the hilltops. It just makes me want to go and do something else."

page 369- "i can see the risk and the rush that talking to me provides him. It's something that is not remotely about me."

"And all of a sudden I know, because when you figure out the truth you can FEEL it, hot and deep in your bones, and it feels different and familiar all at once, like deja vu, like opening your suitcase in a foreign place and smelling home."

Tell Me Lies A Novel

Reviews

Highlights