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.
Goodreads Rating: 4.07
It all started with Simon Kelleher’s sudden death. The creator of About That, an application filled with juiciest gossips you can find in Bayview High. Simon’s death appalled Bayview High, but secretly, they are relieved that there is not going to be anyone who could reveal their deepest, darkest secret anymore.
Bronwyn, Nate, Addy, and Cooper were all in the same room when Simon drew his last breath on Monday. The thing is, Simon was planning to reveal Bronwyn, Nate, Addy, and Cooper’s secrets on Tuesday. And it might just ruin their life if it ever comes out. From being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they become suspects in their fellow high school friend’s death who now is a murder case.
With four different points of views, we follow their journey through this horrifying situation. Some of them fell hard, some of them got back up almost immediately. From being the murder suspects to unraveling the mystery themselves, we also get to know the whole story behind their darkest secrets. Are all of them telling the truth? Or one of them is lying?
One of Us is Lying is a debut novel from Karen M. McManus. I’ve got to say, it’s a hell of a debut novel. I love how she tells the story through all of four different perspectives and did it remarkably even though I found myself flipping the pages back to find whose POV I was reading for a couple of times.
I was not falling in love with Bronwyn, Nate, Addy, and Cooper’s characters immediately. But as the story goes, they kind of grew in me. The characters developments satisfied me, especially this one particular character.
The story itself was pretty fast paced, kept me on the edge of my seat for the whole ride. Every twist and turn were executed gracefully. This novel made me remember how much I love reading a mystery novel which I had been abandoned for so long due to my numerous fantasy book on my To-Be-Read list.
I watch crime shows a lot, and usually I was always right on guessing who the murderer is. But with books, I never knew, sometimes I get it right and sometimes I don’t. I was trying to solve the mystery myself, who killed Simon and how by looking through every facts and hint that were given. And let me tell you, I didn’t see that one coming.
This novel is a real treat for fans of Riverdale and Pretty Little Liars, it even has some Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places in my opinion. So, if you love to read a mystery book, you don’t want to sit this one out.
