Reviews with content warning for Eating disorder - Tell Me Lies

Recently just finished the show and found out it was based on a book, so you know I had to read it. The book is COMPLETELY different than the show… but not in a bad way? It’s just so different it’s weird.
Stephen and Lucy’s relationship is so toxic but yet intoxicating. By the end of the book you hate Stephen with all your fu€#ing guts because he is the WORST!!!!!
I think this book hit a little too close to home because Lucy is recovering from some trauma, goes to college and falls in love with the typical asshole. So she tries and tries and tries to fix him and herself. There are some tigger warnings in here that as a female in love with a guy we all can relate too… anorexia, lying about it from your friends, and self destruction.
I think I loved this book so much because it was extremely relatable and I’m so relieved the way it ended <3

Content Warnings

elderwoodreads's review against another edition

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dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I wasn't sure how I felt about this book for most of it. I feel like I enjoy this as extended character study but the story was weird and disjointed. As others have said the ending is incredibly abrupt and out of nowhere. Ultimately I really enjoyed Stephen's chapters and inner world even if I vehemently disagree with it. I think if you like the show it's worth a shot.

Content Warnings

jennabeck13's review against another edition

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dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering

⭐️ (1/5)

Genre: Romance

About 370 pages

Lucy is searching for who she wants to be when she arrives at Baird’s campus in California. She is young and naive which is how she falls into Stephen’s trap. The two start an on-again, off-again romance as they can’t resist each other despite knowing they aren’t good for one another. Tell Me Lies tells the story of their relationship during college, their transition to the professional world, and beyond.

Keeping this brief… I did not like this book. It felt like it was promoting toxic relationships and in my opinion, there were no “positive” moments in Lucy and Stephen’s relationship. GoodReads promotes this as a “coming of age” story and a romance, but I think it was the opposite. While I think addressing themes like those in this book is important, I don’t think it was done properly here.

Favorite Quote: “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 single moment, big or small. It’s reciprocal and often unglamorous. But we bank on it because it’s what gives life meaning.”

Content Warnings

meggypie's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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erss's review against another edition

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4.0

Big little lies meets a secret history

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afroheaux's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I'm in between 3.5 and 3.75 for this book because I enjoyed the writing style, and it kept me engaged throughout, but I didn't like it. Throughout the book, I was just waiting for something that just didn't happen. The author is an incredible writer. I love the way she describes things. She clearly did a lot of good research for this because Stephen's tone and thought process is accurate to the mindset of a sociopath. The style is similar to the Luckiest Girl Alive, and I should've known after seeing a raving review from that author about this book that this wasn't going to be my favorite. However, Lucy, even though I did not like her much, was a bit more endearing to me than TifAni.

Stephen is a horrible person, but I do think it's important to write books about people like him to show people how they think and operate. I'm sure this book could be a great wake-up call to someone who's stuck in a relationship like this to break the delusions of what you think the other person feels for you. What I love the most about the way she wrote Stephen is that he was incredibly honest with many around him, but people didn't want to listen. They only heard what they wanted to hear from him. Everything else painted him as a creep, so they ignored it. As someone who has had their own toxic (somewhat) codependent relationship that wasn't a relationship, I can understand Lucy's thought process well, and yet even that didn't endear me to her. The eating disorder references were hard to get through. As someone who is recovering, it's hard to read through the mind of someone who has contempt for someone who looks like you.

The "Unforgivable Thing" being her "canon event" and powers her decision-making throughout the detrimental relationship with Stephen just didn't make much sense to me, honestly. Lucy herself wasn't the best person, which she is honest about, and I wish that were focused on more rather than the fact that seeing her mom have sex with her childhood crush (who was almost a decade older than her) made her this awful person. What confounds me the most about the ending is how she saw bringing this event to light improved her relationships with her entire family, and they were able to heal. Why not air some of that truth for Macy as well? Why not give her family the peace of knowing the truth like you now know? Why allow Stephen to walk around and continue to do horrible things to other people, knowing he's a murderer? The ending was dissatisfying because even though Lucy has physically removed him from her life, she's still protecting him. I'm glad that she decided to remove herself from the toxic environment she created for herself, but there's much left to be desired by the ending.

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shelbycundiff's review against another edition

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3.0

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brigid_lynn9's review against another edition

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challenging sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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