Society of Lies by Lauren Ling Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars rounded up**
Society of Lies follows sisters, Maya and Naomi. Maya graduated from Princeton a decade ago, and now her little sister, Naomi, is set to graduate from there as well.
When Maya returns to the university for her reunion and Naomi’s graduation, she’s shocked when she receives a nightmare phone call. Naomi is dead.
Maya is left reeling. She’s devastated. If only she could have seen Naomi one more time.
The police are calling it an accident, but that doesn’t sit right with Maya. The things the police are alluding to, they don’t track with Naomi’s personality.
As Maya begins looking into her sister’s tragic death though, she discovers that Naomi was keeping a whole lot from her. Did she really know her little sister at all?
One of her discoveries is that her sister joined the Sterling Club, the same exclusive club that Maya had been a member of herself. She had warned Naomi to stay away, but apparently those warnings didn’t stick.
Maya knows Naomi isn’t the first young woman to die while a member of this club. The more she digs in, the more the evidence seems to point back to her time within the organization. Could she have done anything differently to save Naomi from this fate?
I enjoyed this, although it took some time to get my bearings with the perspectives and timelines. I did love learning about both Maya and Naomi. I felt for them and the difficult things they’d experienced in their lives.
Their relationship was complicated and unfortunately, there was a lot of failed opportunities for open communication. It left them both viewing their relationship very differently, which made me sad, the details of that. I wish they could have had more time together.
I also enjoyed the elite-Princeton setting and what everyone was getting up to there. I do tend to vibe really well with this type of story. Give me shadow organizations, lies, cover-ups and rich people behaving badly any day.
At times, I’ll admit, this narrative felt a little choppy. You get Maya’s perspective both past and present, and the jumps between her past at Princeton and Naomi’s present at Princeton could get muddled if you let down your guard for even a moment.
Overall though, I do appreciate the difficult themes this author explored within this otherwise fairly standard Mystery-Thriller. To me, the character’s relationships were the gold star of this story.
Thank you to the publisher, Bantam, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I would def be interested in picking up more from this author!