Review | One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

Five students are in detention, all of them from different cliques in their high school. One of them, the owner of an infamous tell-all app, drops dead before the end of the day. He had planned to publish a post spilling secrets on the other four students before his death. Now, the four remaining students are considered murder suspects. All of them have secrets to hide, but how far would they go to protect themselves?

I guess we’re almost friends now, or as friendly as you can get when you’re not one hundred percent sure the other person isn’t framing you for murder.

One of Us Is Lying has been hyped up a lot in the reviews so I had really high expectations going in. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to read through and I managed to finish the book in a couple of hours. I liked that the four main characters; Addy, Bronwyn, Cooper and Nate are stereotypes on paper but are revealed to have their own depth and interests beyond expectations by other people. Even Simon, who dies early in the book, is still present. In a way, he becomes a phantom villain whose past actions have a ripple effect on the others. The mystery is intriguing in the beginning though I guessed early on who the culprit was and was proven right.

The romance between two main characters is a familiar bad-boy-good-girl trope but it’s sweet enough that I was rooting for them to make it to the end. I felt that the strongest element in the book is the eventual friendships between the four characters. There is also an honest portrayal of an abusive relationship. I liked the growth shown by Addy (my favourite character!) when she comes into her own as a person beyond being someone’s girlfriend.

My issue with this book is the handling of a character’s sexuality and the resolution to the murder mystery. I wish that a character’s sexuality isn’t revealed like a huge plot twist. I also didn’t buy the motivations of the culprit and the extent of the crime. There is a sensitive way to portray mental health issues in a YA book and I think this book missed its mark.

Overall, One Of Us Is Lying is an entertaining mystery with appealing characters that I still enjoyed even if it stumbles at the end.

About the author: Karen M McManus

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