BOOK REVIEW: ONE OF US IS LYING

Murder Mystery - Finding yourself - Fixing the puzzle - Suspenseful

Author: Karen McManus

Genre: YA Fiction, Murder Mystery

Page Count: 325 pages

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of substance abuse (drugs), murder, homophobia

“I know what it's like to tell yourself a lie so often that it becomes the truth.”

“Things'll get worse before they get better.”

When Bayview High is faced with the death of a student -- the owner and writer of the high school's most notorious gossip app, four suspects are held guilty. Five of the school's students walk into detention that day -- Addy, Bronwyn, Nate, Cooper; but at the end of the day, Simon is found dead, the other four being left to police investagations. As the investigation builds tension and ammunition, the four suspect's secrets are revealed -- secrets that were planned to be released on Simon's app, giving police reason to blame the kids his death. Through the school year, the four grow wary of each other, each seeing a murderer in the other suspects, and they're forced to navigate high school with this cloud of suspense and dread navigating over them. What really matters is -- how far would they go to protect their secrets?

One of Us Is Lying is Karen M. McManus' debut novel, and soon after being released, it hit the New York Times Bestselling charts. Through this book, we follow not only the four suspects' of a witnessed murder social lives, but also the ones hidden in the comfort of their home, and the struggles they face outside the bandwidth of the murder. As the four navigate high school, they learn the importance of sticking together contrary to popular belief, and ascertain how far they would go to keep a secret.

Through the brutally forced police investigations and the plethora of blames and arguments, it's a no-brainer that Karen M. McManus knows how to write a killer thriller, as I had assumed. Much of the tension, aggravation, and wariness was building collectively most of the book, and I was clinging to my seat in anticipation, waiting to see how this mystery would unfold itself -- until the third act. Though the process of finding out who murdered Simon was an event of suspense and agog, the actual reveal left something to be desired, as it was one of expectance. The entire book seemed to follow a cliched, or rather, predictable plotline, and it didn't hold my attention for long, as after seeing the insight of the four suspects on the investigation, it became all too probable who killed Simon. The supposed plot twist left little to no factor of shock on me, as it seemed overexaggerated, and as stated, predictable. Not only I, but also many others could predict the outcome of this investigation, and while I believe it was meant to surprise the readers with an intricated plan revealed, it only abolished the book more, making it seem more unrealistic and wary. Much of the story seemed overdramatized because the characters made unrealistic, or simply inane decisions, not only getting them into more trouble than before, but also raising the stakes in an unnecessary way. I felt that the characters could have been much smarter about the decisions they made through the book, and they put themselves the burden of the investigation. They refused to listen to their lawyers, let their emotions dominate, and always gave people a reason to make them at victim. Not only did the story follow an overexaggerated plotline, but it also associated with cliched characters.

The characters of this book follow Addy, Bronwyn, Nate, and Cooper -- all distinguished with their own voices and point of view in this book. Though I believed these characters would be more enjoyable, as suggested by the reviews and ratings of this book, I couldn't find myself to enjoy this aspect of this book, as the characters themselves proved to be cliched and predictable, as did the groupings or relationships interacting between the four suspects. It was as stated in the book, '"She's a princess and you're a jock," he says. He thrusts his chin toward Bronwyn, then at Nate. '"And you're a brain. And you're a criminal. You're all walking teen-movie stereotypes."'. Low and behold, they all proved to be -- but not only that, but the peeks into their personal lives that we get a glimpse of proved to be just as stereotypical as the makings of them as a character. From the fusion of romance between Nate and Bronwyn -- the 'criminal' and the 'brain' respectively, to Cooper -- the 'jock' being a closeted gay man, I'd felt as if we'd seen every scenario before. Even with Abby and her transformation after reveling in shocking information at the end of the book, much of which I cannot give for the sake of keeping this review without spoilers, we saw that all four suspects seemed to fit into a stereotypical categorization. This, not only made the book predictable as we were easily able to conclude the thought processes of all the characters, but also made the book boring to drag through. When the characters are predictable, and thus the plot turns out to be as well, the book seems to have revealed its secrets before reaching the end, leaving us nothing to keep reading for.

Though this book didn't make it high on my favorites list, I find it is especially hard for a book to leave without lessons, even if they are poorly conveyed. In this book, I divulged two lessons, one being that hiding yourself only delays that hidden part being revealed. This is clearly seen with Cooper, the 'jock' of the group, as his efforts to hide his sexuality from the world seems to be of no use, as his relationship with another boy is eventually shown to the world. Here, we can see that no matter how much effort one puts to hide a part of themself, that persona will shine through later, and may in a worse way than you'd anticipate. The other lesson, the more popular one, would be that secrets have their own way of coming out. We can see this with each of the consecutive suspects, the secrets they tried so hard to protect eventually revealed themself through police investigations, Through either Simon's app, or public announcements, we notice that the secrets were told in ways that only worsened the situation, proving that it is much better to admit the truth rather than have it shown without your consent, in a way that many wouldn't prefer to have heard it from. For the sake of keeping this review spoiler-free, I won't tell the secrets for every character, but they do show their face in the light at some point in the novel. Through the murder mystery Karen M.Mcmanus crafted, I learned to never feel the need to hide myself, and that my secrets will disclose eventually.

A New York Times Bestselling Novel, Karen M.Mcmanus has told the truth that secrets try to hide through One of Us Is Lying.

Characters: 0/5

Plot: 2/5

Pacing: 4/5

Overall: 6/15

Alternatives: Sadie, We Were Liars, and One of Us is Next (sequel)

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