Hello everyone!
I am back with another book review, Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering. Thanks so much to BookSparks for sending me a copy of this book for an honest review, as always, all opinions are my own.
**TRIGGER WARNING** There are a few scenes in the book that deal with anorexia/eating disorders as well as hard drug use. I won't be discussing them in this review but proceed with caution in the book if these are issues for you.
This book follows Lucy - and Stephen - through their tumultuous four-year, on-and-off relationship. This is one of those books that is largely driven by characters and not necessarily the plot line itself. Stephen isn't a nice guy, probably not even a decent guy, but Lucy is largely unable to see past his flaws and his serial cheating. Lucy also struggles with her own issues. Neither is perfect but for them, that's what makes them work. At least, for now.
The plot-line itself was really quite simple, the timeline jumped back and forth between 'present day' and the progression of Lucy's college years leading up to 'today.' In the 'present day,' Lucy is living in New York and travelling to go to one of her best friend's weddings, which has been causing her much anxiety, mainly because it means she'll be seeing Stephen again. This was the timeline that I liked the most, but I still enjoyed seeing how everyone ended up where they were.
The dynamic between Stephen and Lucy is really interesting and not at all black-and-white. He's pretty much a jerk, but a charming jerk. Lucy can't help but get caught up in her emotions, and frankly, neither can he. Their relationship was one of those ones where you can see where they keep going wrong, but you can still sympathize with why they keep going down the same destructive path. We get enough of their backstories to see how and why they are the way they are and why they bring certain things to their relationship.
I really enjoyed the writing style on a whole, I was hooked from pretty early on, wanting to know what happened later and how the relationship came to end up the way it did.
Overall, these are not characters you are going to like. They're not even the kind you love to hate. They're just genuinely manipulative and jerk-y people many won't want to read about. But if you are wanting to read about characters like that in a really well-written story, then this is the book for you.