Welcome to my review of One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus. I have had this book on my shelf while waiting to be read after a social media recommendation. Then my daughter (17) read it, loved it, and recommended it to me, so it moved straight to the top of the pile so we could discuss it together and later watch it on Netflix together.
Five students walk into detention. Only four come out alive.
Yale hopeful Bronwyn has never publicly broken a rule.
Sports star Cooper only knows what he’s doing in the baseball diamond.
Bad boy Nate is one misstep away from a life of crime.
Prom queen Addy is holding together the cracks in her perfect life.
And outsider Simon, creator of the notorious gossip app at Bayview High, won’t ever talk about any of them again.
He dies 24 hours before he could post their deepest secrets online. Investigators conclude it’s no accident. All of them are suspects.
Everyone has secrets, right?
What really matters is how far you’ll go to protect them.
Karen M. McManus is a #1 New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of young adult thrillers. Her work includes the One of Us Is Lying series, which has been turned into a television show on Peacock and Netflix, as well as the standalone novels Two Can Keep a Secret, The Cousins, You’ll Be the Death of Me, and Nothing More to Tell. Karen’s critically acclaimed, award-winning books have been translated into more than 40 languages. For more information, visit www.karenmcmanus.com or @writerkmc on Twitter and Instagram.
This Young Adult fiction is based loosely between the Breakfast Club and Pretty Little Liars, which felt appealing in itself but clearly not quite enough to have been read immediately! It held my attention well as an adult, though, and I didn’t feel too young to read.
On Monday afternoon, five students of Bayview High attend detention together. Simon doesn’t leave alive. The plot follows the investigations and suspicions of ‘who done it’.
The police have assumed that someone in the detention room must be responsible once the investigators ruled it wasn’t the accident it appeared to be. This means the remaining chapters follow each of the remaining four go through the aftermath of the murder. There are the apparent teen dramas and questions alongside conspiracies and formal and informal investigations into each student.
The plot was enjoyable and flowed well, keeping your attention, though it can be a little confusing at times to remember which character’s perspective you are reading.
The characters are all stereotypes. Bronwyn, the brain is heading for Yale and never breaks a rule. Addy is beautiful; the princess is always picture-perfect. Nate is a criminal, already on probation for dealing. Cooper is the athlete, the all-star baseball pitcher, and Simon is the outcast and creator of the Bayview High gossip app, think Gossip Girl.
Despite this, they all have their flaws; The princess cheats on her boyfriend, the brainy one steals exam papers, the closeted jock, the criminal who has a bad home life and the outcast who wants all the attention and payback for being outcast.
I found the characters to be irritating at times but it didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the book and they are very similar to those portrayed in many soap operas.
The book is well written. It’s full of twists and turns and plenty of red herrings. You believe that one of them is lying, but you can’t quite work out which one. It’s a reasonably short book at around 360 pages. Still, it does a great job leading you through to the excellent twisted ending, which I hadn’t expected. There is plenty of teen drama and angst alongside a lot of gossip.
It’s not a book that I think I would re-read, but I enjoyed it. It’s an excellent book for young adults to read who want to try out a mystery type book and is equally appealing to adults in the same vein.
| Title | One Of Us Is Lying |
| Author | Karen M. McManus |
| Series | N/A |
| Format | Paperback |
| Page Count | 368 Pages |
| Genre | Mystery & Thrillers / young Adult |
| Publisher | Penguin |
| Release Date | 1st June 2017 |
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