One of us is lying

Author: Karen M. McManus         Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Summary (https://www.goodreads.com/):

Pay close attention and you might solve this.

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walked 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:

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about “one of us is lying” are the characters. There are four different POVs of the characters who witnessed the death of Simon. Even in the book they get described as the typical stereotypes for teenagers and I really liked how McManus broke through those stereotypes. Every character had a specific voice and different story. They were a perfect example of not judging a book by its cover. I also liked how the friendships and relationships between these characters grew. My favourites were definitely Nate and Bronwynn and especially Bronwynn because I could relate to her really well as well. 

Each main character also had such a significant and individual character development and it felt like witnessing someone growing into their personal potential. Even Addy, who seemed kind of bland to me at first, grew on me and is now one of my favourite characters as well. 

The plot also was really engaging and contrary to the typical mystery these characters didn't immediately form a team to investigate but it felt really realistic with everyone trying to stay out of the limelight at first. There wasn't a grand reveal but the plot twist still surprised me and kind of had a different turn to it. 

 I also liked that you couldn't really trust the narrators but automatically kind of did. I did think though that the plot progressed kind of slowly and seemed stuck in the middle. The author did such a great job at writing each Pov and making the characters seem so differentiated from each other. They all had a different way to think and you could recognise it from the way McManus wrote it. The whole book is also in first person and flows really nicely.  

Buchbuzz Rating: 

4,75/5 - One of Us Is Lying was so close to being a perfect five star book but missed it because of the slightly off pacing. Would still 100% recommend and is perfect for a pallet cleanser after a for example complicated series.