Society of Lies by Lauren Ling Brown

Welcome Back, Booklovers! Dark Academia is still widely popular and we're starting to see even more in the mainstream from authors of color. Society of Lies was a Reese's Bookclub pick and seeing people share it was how it ended up on my radar. 

Maya has returned to her alma mater, Princeton after 10 years for her younger sister Naomi's graduation. But then Maya receives the news that Naomi is dead and the police are quick to try and rule it as accidental but Maya believes otherwise. Maya discovers that her sister had joined the infamous Sterling Club, a secret society with a history of tragedy and lies surrounding it.

Society of Lies is told across three timelines: Maya's present day, Maya's time as a student in Princeton in the early 2010s, and Naomi's time at Princeton in the early 2020s. At first as an audiobook listener it was hard to differentiate between the povs of Maya and Naomi during their years at Princeton because they have very similar narrative voices. The story also takes too long finding it's footing during part one where certain incidents could've easily be recapped in a passing sentence rather than a full scene. My interest wasn't grabbed until part two when it felt like movement was actually happening with the storylines rather than the college parties and shallow friendships. Maya's perspective is the stronger of the sister's and the story would've faired better being completely told from hers both past and present. Naomi's experienced paralleled her sister's too closely and felt a little heavy handed in it's attempts to tackle current events.

While part two and three were engaging in part four the pacing again slows down to the book's detriment. It was hard to care when the side characters were rather lackluster. And the overused cliche phrases kept pulling me out of the story. It wasn't a terrible book but the writing lacked depth. It may be good one for those transitioning out of YA books because the plot moves pretty straightforward with a couple of twists thrown in so it's not too hard to follow. However if you've read a few of these types of books don't expect to be wowed by this story.