One of Us Is Lyingby Karen M. McManus
Published by Penguin
e-ARC (received via NetGalley)
YA, contemporary, mystery
One of Us Is Lying is the story of what happens when five strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. Everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide.
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.
I had high hopes for this because it was supposed to be thrilling high school whodunnit where I could keep guessing who was lying and who the murderer was among the students in the detention. However, the story was so full of one dimensional stereotypes and the pacing of the story was all over the place so I didn't end up enjoying it much. The last third of the story was quite exciting and I grew to like few of the characters but that doesn't save the two thirds when the characters had nothing special or interesting in them.
The beginning was quite great: fast paced detention where the outcast Simon dies and basically everyone panics. There's Bronwyn, the good girl who doesn't know what to do in real life situation; there's the beautiful Addy who panics; there's Cooper who's a jock; and there's the criminal, Nate, who surprisingly knows what to do in the situation. The setting of these stereotypical characters was forgivable and in some way exciting because there was a promise that everything's not what it seems. But the problem was that there was never any development in their characters or their home situations that would have made them something more than stereotypical. Let's round it up: the characters lived up to their stereotypes because a) their secrets matched the stereotypes (for example, the smart girl who cheated), b) their parents and home situation were stereotypical (for example, the criminal with addicted and uncaring parents), and c) well, all the revelations and plot twists basically continued to add to these stereotypes (I'm not giving anything away but trust me, you could see everything from miles away). And of course the romance of the story is between the bad boy and the smart girl. Basically, the book was a manifesto for all American high school stereotypes.
That might have been the reason why I had problems with connecting with the characters because how one dimensional they were and how predictable to plot was. I wanted mystery and thrilling investigation but it all got tramped on to high school drama. I did like Cooper and his storyline was quite interesting but of course he got least attention and had less page time than the others. Addy grew on me, too, and I ended up liking her after a rough start.
There was potential, but the stereotypes and lack of character development outside of those stereotypes made the story so predictable that it was quite hard to enjoy. I can only recommend this if you don't mind excessive use of stereotypes and lack of unique characters/situations. The murder mystery was good, and I have to admit I didn't guess who the killer was. And the last third of the story was quite exciting but I don't feel like it saves the day.
The beginning was quite great: fast paced detention where the outcast Simon dies and basically everyone panics. There's Bronwyn, the good girl who doesn't know what to do in real life situation; there's the beautiful Addy who panics; there's Cooper who's a jock; and there's the criminal, Nate, who surprisingly knows what to do in the situation. The setting of these stereotypical characters was forgivable and in some way exciting because there was a promise that everything's not what it seems. But the problem was that there was never any development in their characters or their home situations that would have made them something more than stereotypical. Let's round it up: the characters lived up to their stereotypes because a) their secrets matched the stereotypes (for example, the smart girl who cheated), b) their parents and home situation were stereotypical (for example, the criminal with addicted and uncaring parents), and c) well, all the revelations and plot twists basically continued to add to these stereotypes (I'm not giving anything away but trust me, you could see everything from miles away). And of course the romance of the story is between the bad boy and the smart girl. Basically, the book was a manifesto for all American high school stereotypes.
That might have been the reason why I had problems with connecting with the characters because how one dimensional they were and how predictable to plot was. I wanted mystery and thrilling investigation but it all got tramped on to high school drama. I did like Cooper and his storyline was quite interesting but of course he got least attention and had less page time than the others. Addy grew on me, too, and I ended up liking her after a rough start.
There was potential, but the stereotypes and lack of character development outside of those stereotypes made the story so predictable that it was quite hard to enjoy. I can only recommend this if you don't mind excessive use of stereotypes and lack of unique characters/situations. The murder mystery was good, and I have to admit I didn't guess who the killer was. And the last third of the story was quite exciting but I don't feel like it saves the day.
2 of 5 stars
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Thank you, Penguin Random House UK, for giving me a chance to read and review One of Us Is Lying!
(A copy of this ebook was provided in return for an honest review.)
Aw, that's a bummer this one wasn't as good as you had hoped! It definitely sounds like there's a lot of one dimensional characters in here, just from the blurb alone. I tend to dislike books that play too much into stereotypes like this, unless they do so in a creative way. Still, this one sounded really interesting. I might still pick it up just to figure out what happens.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the honest review!
Ashtyn @ Wonderland’s Reader!
Hi Ashtyn! I agree, it does sound like from the blurb alone but I hoped that it would turn the stereotypes upside down or surprise in some way to make the characters unique. The murder mystery is good though, if you can just look past all the playing with the stereotypes :)
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