Book Review | One Of Us Is Lying

This was one of my festival buys from last year, I know I’m supposed to be trying to get through my Netgalley books but I just couldn’t resist.

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Yale hopeful Bronwyn has never publicly broken a rule.

Sports star Cooper only knows what he’s doing in the baseball diamond.

Bad boy Nate is one misstep away from a life of crime.

Prom queen Addy is holding together the cracks in her perfect life.

And outsider Simon, creator of the notorious gossip app at Bayview High, won’t ever talk about any of them again.

He dies 24 hours before he could post their deepest secrets online. Investigators conclude it’s no accident. All of them are suspects.

Everyone has secrets, right?

What really matters is how far you’ll go to protect them.

Amazon | Goodreads | Book Depository

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You know when a book grabs you from the first page and you spend endless hours saying just one more chapter to the detriment of pretty much everything else. This book gave me exactly that feeling, it was impossible not to get ensnared into the mystery of what happened to Simon and who the culprit was.

The set up for this book is just brilliant, five students go into detention only four come out alive and then it’s discovered that they all possibly had a motive for wanting him dead in the form of secrets that Simon was about to share on his gossip app. I mean secrets are a perfect ingredient for any story but when they are utilised in this way and have such devastating consequences it is a stroke of genius.

I think what I admire most about this book is that even though this book has a ‘whodunnit’ storyline, the bigger picture is a look at the aftermath of the secrets that get revealed, how each character faces it and the fallout from that. That they have to face up to essentially their worst nightmare and how that changes them as a person. The growth of each of the characters was amazing, I was surprised at how in depth we got for them and that I was rooting for all of them to come through the ordeal and make it out unscathed.

I’m not going to say too much more about the story because it’s the kind of book that you don’t want spoiled in any way, what I will say though is that I did not see the result of the reveal at all. I was so shocked and the last couple of chapters it felt like my eyes couldn’t read quickly enough to discover the reasons behind it. I can see why this book has got so much praise from so many people and I’m glad that I listened to it and picked it up.

A spectacular debut and I am certainly excited to get my hands on other books from this author.

Reviews of other books by Karen M. McManus
The Cousins | You’ll Be The Death Of Me | Nothing More To Tell