{"id":11302,"date":"2025-02-17T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11302"},"modified":"2025-02-17T07:40:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T12:40:51","slug":"society-of-lies-hometown-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11302","title":{"rendered":"Society of Lies — Hometown Thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reading a book set in your own home town is always kind of a kick, and people with a Princeton connection may want to read it for that reason alone. I enjoyed the inside references to places in the Princeton area in Lauren Ling Brown\u2019s new thriller, but the personalities she describes don\u2019t ring true. She makes clear that Society of Lies<\/em> doesn\u2019t reflect either real characters or social groups at Princeton University, where she did her undergraduate work, and I hope that\u2019s true! Still, you\u2019re forced to wonder to what extent her college experience is reflected here. Like the pair of sisters who are the novel\u2019s main characters, and who encounter prejudice and insults, the author is Black and Asian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Older sister Maya is visiting the campus a decade after her own graduation to witness the graduation of her sister, Naomi. The return to Princeton immediately triggers waves of memories, especially those surrounding the eating club\u2014Sterling\u2014where both Maya and Naomi were members. Maya also is haunted by the unexpected death of one of her friends ten years earlier. (Eating clubs\u2014combination dining hall and social club\u2014are a nearly 150-year-old tradition at Princeton.) Brown\u2019s fictional Sterling Club is the elite of the elite and has a corrupt secret society at its heart. With all the positives that membership in a club like Sterling can offer, there\u2019s always a downside. It\u2019s tempting to misuse that influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is all brought back to Maya in the story\u2019s first chapter when, on the eve of graduation, Naomi is found drowned. The story timeline ping-pongs between Naomi\u2019s last few months on campus, and Maya\u2019s own university experiences. The similarities can make it hard to keep events straight, despite the clearly labeled short chapters. The extent of drinking and drug use\u2014prescription and otherwise\u2014may be realistic, I can\u2019t say. But when the characters\u2019 resulting confusion and flawed memories repeatedly lead to story red herrings, it became tiresome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Brown has some surprises in store, she plays fair and provides the clues needed to back up the story\u2019s conclusions. Although her writing style is promising, her prose is weighted down with unnecessary verbiage that makes the going seem slow. It isn\u2019t necessary to describe characters\u2019 emotions repeatedly, when their reactions are patently understandable. We\u2019ve all (probably) had friends who were stuck in a romantic rut, like Naomi is with Liam, her boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, boyfriend again, ex-again, and we\u2019ve all (probably) eventually lost patience with those friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading a book set in your own home town is always kind of a kick, and people with a Princeton connection may want to read it for that reason alone. I enjoyed the inside references to places in the Princeton … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[366,126,32],"tags":[2240,2252],"class_list":["post-11302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drama","category-reading-2","category-thriller","tag-murder-mystery","tag-princeton"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2Wi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11302"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11306,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11302\/revisions\/11306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}