BOOK REVIEW – One of Us Is Lying

One of Us Is Lying by: Karen M. McManus- #1 in the One of Us Is Lying series (One of Us Is Lying is the only book out so far in this series)!

AGE GROUP: 14 and up// GENRE: Fiction/ Mystery// AMOUNT OF PAGES: 358// RATING: 4/5

YA BOOK

summary

Five teenagers go into detention, and four come out. Bronwyn, Addy, Nate, and Cooper come out; however, Simon doesn’t make it. The four teenagers are suspects in Simon’s murder but none of them pledge guilty. Nevertheless, the police aren’t convinced. Each of the high school teenagers are keeping secrets, but do their secrets signal that they’re covering up the murder? One of them has to have done it, right? One of them has to be lying.

review

Hey guys, I’m back with another review! Wow! This book was so good!

PLOT

I have never read a murder mystery or any type of mystery in my life so this was such a good change. The plot was what kept me reading (obviously) and guessing until the very end. I loved this book so much because of the characters and the premise. Throughout the whole book I was like Where is the foreshadowing? which is stupid because foreshadowing is meant to be unnoticeable because that’s what it is. However, as I got towards the end of the book I realized that the foreshadowing was hidden in plain sight. There were clues that were so obvious to what had happened to Simon, but you would read them and not think twice. That was how McManus really killed the game with her foreshadowing skills. Opps, I guess this foreshadowing paragraph should be under ‘writing’ but I’m keeping it under ‘plot’.

As for the actual plot, I thought it was quite well done. The point of a mystery book is to keep you reading until the very end (well, I guess that’s what an author’s trying to achieve in any book) and One of Us Is Lying definitely was a page turner for me. Although there weren’t many major things happening regarding the actual plot, I kind of liked how simple and straightforward everything was. The only thing everyone in the book was trying do was figure who the heck killed Simon. That’s it. And I liked the simplicity of that because if there were other major crisis’ regarding that straightforward mystery, the book would have been too convoluted.

I do have one little thing that I wished the author did differently. I just stated that I liked how simple the mystery was (as are most murder mysteries) but I wish McManus had included some other little things in the middle of the book. Throughout most of it all you’re reading about were the character’s personal issues (which I liked because you got to know all of the main characters better), but it got a little boring sometimes because the characters were mostly having to endure going to school and constantly being called into the police station. Minor problem aside, I really loved the plot of this book.

CHARACTERS

I found the characters in this book to be really well done because I loved all of them, although Nate and Bronwyn would have to be my favourite. McManus created some really different and interesting characters that I want to read more about because there is so much more to each of them then what meets the eye. I don’t think I’ve read anything quite like these four characters before, so I loved the originality.

WRITING

Since I already stated the foreshadowing thing, all I really have to say about McManus’ writing is that I didn’t love how she didn’t describe things as well as she maybe could have. At some parts she’d describe a character or scene really well and I was able to picture it in my head so I know she had the ability, but she just didn’t keep it consistent. There wasn’t a lot of detail and depth in the book as far as descriptions go and since nothing major really happened in the middle of the book, I felt like she could’ve painted a really clear image of each character and all the scenery. Maybe she’s just not one of those writers that describes everything/everyone and that’s fine, but I do like when books have really clear descriptions.

OVERALL

I’m honestly so thrilled One of Us Is Lying was my first murder mystery novel because the experience was so good that I’d like to read others. Overall, I adore this book now and the reason I gave it a 4/5 was solely because I wanted more depth in the writing and nothing really happened in the middle of the book. However, I still loved reading One of Us Is Lying and I cannot wait till the next book in this still-developing series!

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