One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

Spoiler-free review of One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

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Synopsis

The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars, One of Us Is Lying is the story of what happens when five strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. Everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide.

Pay close attention and you might solve this.

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention.
Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule.
Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess.
Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing.
Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher.
AndSimon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High’s notorious gossip app.

Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon’s dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn’t an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he’d planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who’s still on the loose?
Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.

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My thoughts

Three-word description : murder, secrets, liars
My rating : 4.5 / 5 stars

Ahh, I particularly love a good YA murder mystery story, it just tends to intrigue me more than any other genre so I know I had to pick it up when everyone is raving about this book!

The story gave me pretty exciting Pretty Little Liars vibes, which is the only TV show I watched past season one. (I really can’t keep up with TV shows, so this says a lot) I really do adore the story, it is very well plotted with interesting characters unraveling the truth as the story goes on. We have a squad of fairly different personalities, all thrown together to figure out what is the truth on their own, which also gave me a little bit of a And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie vibe!

One of the most enjoyable things about the story is learning all of the characters’ secrets. I particularly love Cooper though I take interest in all the characters equally! I love how Karen M. McManus throws the story in different directions, leading the readers to wonder who is the actual murderer.

And also, there is just too many twists I did not see coming but the ending was okay, not as mind-blown as everyone else said because I definitely predicted the ending at one point near the end of the story, but still it was really interesting seeing who was involved. I feel like the author gave pretty obvious clues and totally would have been more mysterious if she led the readers up onto another direction, but still, it was pretty good!

The pace was really consistent, fast-paced with so much happening from start to end. One thing that took away half a star is definitely the fact that it took me some time to be fully immersed into the story, as there are four POVs and I have not read a multi-POV book in a really long time! Once I got past that stage, I finished the book in one sitting, flying through the book wanting to know more!

Overall, I love the story very much and am excited to learn that there is a sequel already out in the world! I can’t wait to pick it up! To wrap it all up, if you love good friendship, secrets and mysteries, this is is one for you!