Book Review: One of Us is Lying

About the Book:

Title: One of Us is Lying

Author: Karen M. McManus

Pub. Date: May 30, 2017

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Pages: 361

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Synopsis:

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.

And Simon, 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.

Review:

So I featured this book on my Top Ten Books of 2017 post last week, and now you can read about why.  One of Us Is Lying is an absolutely amazing read that I devoured in one sitting! I certainly did not expect to love this book as much as I did, but maybe that underestimation paid off. Because I LOVED THIS BOOK! There were 2 minor things that made me lower my rating, but honestly this book was so addicting that I couldn't possibly give it less than a 4 star rating. And by addicting I mean, if this was a TV show I would be binge-watching it so hard!

Let's start off with the characters...they were excellent! Every single character is fleshed out and developed throughout the story. While reading, we come to realize that everyone is definitely not who they first appeared to be and everyone (and I do mean everyone ) has secrets. Are they secrets they would kill for though is the ultimate question. Every character in this book was relatable and had a good head on their shoulders. I thought this book was going to be one of those typical teenage whodunit books where you had your stereotypical teenagers who were accused of a murder. Even the synopsis of the book implies this! But this is not the case at all!! Each character has a lot of depth and has their own voice.

I loved the set up of this entire book because it added that modern twist to the classic whodunit mystery. The story is told from every characters' POV throughout the chapters. At first, I was worried this would become confusing, but it never was. Again, tying into the fact that every character has their own voice, you can easily tell who is narrating at any given point. There are so many twists and turns in this book that you won't see coming (arguably some of them you will though). However, I think my favorite aspect in general was the ending! I loved how everything came together and how the ending was a bit messy for the characters. None of them had this HAE that has come to be expected in YA mystery novels such as this one. There were mistakes and consequences made by each character. On top of this, the ending is left a little open so who knows what future decisions (and the outcome of the decisions already made) will occur. Finally, the sure ingenuity of how everything came together made my inner Forensic Files-nerd absolutely giddy. 

The two things that made me lower the rating from 5 stars to 4.5. First: I was able to pretty much figure out what happened by the end of the first chapter. Obviously, I didn't have every single detail figured out, but I knew pretty much what happened. I will say that I was surprised about one thing (but I did know that there was more to the story anyway). I was hoping that I would be able to be completely surprised in the end, but this is more something personal anyway. I've read a lot of books like this, so it's hard to actually be surprised anymore. The second thing was the mental illness part of this book. I do see how many people will be upset by the way it was handled (or I should say the outcome of the story). I do think it should have been discussed more in depth because this part was just kind of glazed over in the end. But it's certainly not the worst I have seen and I don't think it was handled that poorly. Again, just wish it was incorporated a bit more.

I highly recommend this book to everyone who likes a good murder mystery story!! This novel was utterly addicting and intriguing from the very start. I loved putting the puzzle pieces together and watching all of the drama unfold. This definitely exceeded my expectations and I am very happy that I did read this book. 

Happy reading :)

~Cassie