Carola Lovering’s “Tell Me Lies” has struck a nerve.
Millions of readers and viewers have found the bestselling novel-turned-Hulu sensation painfully, uncomfortably real. But for Colorado College students, the story hits differently.
That’s because Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco’s destructive relationship doesn’t unfold at just any college. It unfolds at ours.
Lovering graduated from CC in 2011 and “Tell Me Lies” is a thinly veiled roman-à-clef packed with campus Easter eggs hiding in plain sight. To plenty of viewers of the Hulu adaptation, it might be just another college drama set somewhere vaguely East Coast. But some CC students recognize the campus dynamics, the social hierarchies and the specific kind of intensity that comes from a small liberal arts campus where everyone knows everyone’s business.
Published in 2018 and adapted for Hulu in 2022, “Tell Me Lies” follows Lucy and Stephen through a years-long on-again, off-again relationship that begins in college and refuses to let go. Using a dual timeline structure, the novel shows how a single toxic relationship can shape someone’s entire adult life and how the lies we tell ourselves at 22 still echo at 27.
What makes the story so compelling is that Lucy isn’t naive. She’s smart, self-aware and surrounded by friends who can see exactly what’s happening. And she stays anyway. Readers watch her ignore red flags, dismiss warnings and convince herself that Stephen’s manipulation is passion, that this time will be different.
Lovering has been open about drawing from her own experiences with an unhealthy relationship, writing a story that refuses to romanticize toxicity or frame it as passionate love. The result is her whirlwind 384-page novel that resonates with readers who recognize the psychological patterns her writing depicts: the boundaries repeatedly crossed, red flags ignored and friends’ warnings dismissed.
But the CC connection adds another layer.
Lovering didn’t just write about toxic love; she wrote about how it unfolds in the specific ecosystem of a small campus where your ex is always in a one-mile radius, where gossip travels quickly through the grapevine and where escaping someone can mean escaping a social life entirely.
If, for some CC students, watching the Hulu adaptation or reading the novel feels oddly, unsettlingly familiar, that’s because it is. It’s not just another college drama; it’s quietly a CC story.
Lovering attended CC beginning in 2008, where she majored in English and wrote for The Catalyst.
Reflecting on how CC shaped her writing, Lovering said the experience built her confidence.
“CC gave me a lot of courage in a lot of ways,” she said in a phone interview.
Lovering added that “Tell Me Lies,” her debut novel published seven years after she left campus, draws from her time at the college.
“Tell Me Lies … is obviously inspired by my experience at CC in a lot of ways,” she said.
According to Julia Decker ‘26, a reader of the book who also watched the television adaptation, the story is filled with connections that CC students would immediately recognize.
“I am obsessed with ‘Tell Me Lies’ and have been watching the show since it came out,” Decker said. “I recently started reading the book, and the amount of connections to CC [is] wild. I connected with the plot a lot after finding all the hidden connections to our school.”
Another student, Lily Butler ‘29, drew other connections.
“I think ‘Tell Me Lies’ is so interesting to watch because it feels pretty similar to how interconnected going to a small college can feel. You’re usually running into the same people, and certain relationships or situations feel harder to avoid,” said Butler.
Although “Tell Me Lies” contains many recognizable traces of CC, Lovering emphasized that she never intended the book to function as a direct portrait of the campus. During the editing process, she and her editor deliberately worked to ensure that the fictitious college did not resemble CC too closely, for both creative and legal reasons.
The novel is set in Southern California, yet its vivid depictions of the mountains and a small, close-knit campus feel familiar to some CC students. The book also references an infamous trip to the fabricated “Lake Mead,” which Lovering confirmed was inspired by a long-standing student tradition of an annual trip to Lake Powell. Additional details throughout the novel further reflect aspects of CC student life in 2009.
When asked about the real-life trip, Lovering said, “Lake Powell would definitely be one of those memories. I mean, I don’t know if I could ever — I probably could never — do that again because I feel like it was, especially as a parent, so dangerous.”
Lovering said she renamed old party houses and wrote characters to avoid real-life depiction. The party house “Slug,” she confirmed, references a former CC party house across from Mathias known as “the Twamp.” The fictional fraternity “Chops” likely depicts the now-disbanded Phi Gamma Delta fraternity (Fiji). CC disbanded Fiji in 2006 and later reinstated it in 2012. The chapter was again disbanded in 2021.
Lovering also confirmed references to Safe Ride, the local CorePower and an old CC social event dubbed “Islands Party.” While some CC readers have speculated that Lucy’s near-enrollment in a summer writing-intensive block in the French Riviera could be a nod to the college’s legendary block, Greece: The World of Odysseus, taught by two now-retired professors, Lovering didn’t confirm it.
When asked about what she misses about CC, it’s actually pretty simple.
“I miss the experience of being around all of my best friends all the time and, like, you know, getting ready to go to parties together and going to parties together and then the next day, unpacking funny things that happened … I miss that time of life,” she said.
And yet, the CC references are almost the most understated part of the book’s legacy. What truly made “Tell Me Lies” a phenomenon was the millions of viewers and readers connecting to the manipulative, toxic relationship at the center of the story.
The content has stirred intense cultural conversation, especially around the character Stephen DeMarco. Fans have become so emotionally invested that reactions to Stephen frequently spill out of the digital world and into real life. Jackson White, who plays Stephen in the Hulu adaptation, has had fans yell at him on the street, shouting things like “Get away from her” when seen with Grace Van Patten, who plays Lucy Albright.
Online, the collective hatred of Stephen has become one of the defining features of the show’s fandom. Across social media platforms like Instagram and Reddit, viewers described being triggered or emotionally rattled by Stephen’s manipulative behavior, with some comparing his actions to past real-life relationships and calling his portrayal frighteningly realistic. The show’s ability to incite such visceral reactions highlights its deeper impact: it’s not just entertainment.
Lovering prompted commentary and reflection on what unhealthy relationships look like.
She also reflected on how satisfying it has been to watch audiences so strongly condemn Stephen’s actions.
“Back then […] nobody talked about gaslighting, nobody talked about love bombing,” she said.
She noted how confusing toxic dynamics can feel when there’s no vocabulary to name them. Now, she explained, viewers and readers not only recognize Stephen’s behavior but loudly reject it.
“And so it is satisfying in a sense, in retrospect, to kind of see people really condemn his behavior,” she said. At the same time, she admitted she found the reaction almost humorous in its intensity.
Lovering gives CC students both a toxic relationship and an unfolding of campus history being immortalized.
CC fingerprints are all over it. For some viewers, it is a gripping Hulu drama about a toxic relationship, but for CC students who know the context, it’s something more intimate: Saferide, Lake Powell and old party houses under new names. Lovering has been careful to stress that the book is not a literal portrait of CC, blurred for creative and legal reasons, but the emotional truth of the place shines through.
That’s why the story likely lands differently for students. They aren’t just watching Lucy and Stephen spiral; they’re watching their familiar campus environment amplify a relationship that many of us recognize in pieces of our own lives or those of our friends.
“Tell Me Lies” isn’t just a cultural phenomenon because of its drama. It does so by giving language to dynamics that were once unnamed, allowing viewers to see manipulation for what it is.
So the next time you walk past a party on Weber Street, remember: someone might be writing it all down. And 20 years from now, it might become the cultural phenomenon that teaches millions how to spot a Stephen DeMarco.