Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

122 reviews

greatexpectations77's review

challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I really liked this one, and I was hooked the whole time. My only annoyance is that the narrators didn't discuss with each other what kind of Southern accent that Cooper should have, so everyone's accent for him was all over the place. But I'm excited to work through this series.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Outing, Child death, Homophobia, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Death, Murder, Emotional abuse, and Infidelity

Minor: Grief, Mental illness, Suicide, Cancer, Drug use, Sexual content, and Alcohol

_corrin's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Death, Outing, Murder, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Alcohol, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Mental illness, Cancer, and Mass/school shootings

annaspeckien's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Toxic relationship, Homophobia, and Suicide

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, Death, Mass/school shootings, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Addiction, Alcoholism, and Bullying

Minor: Terminal illness, Abandonment, and Cancer

riverstyx1325's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Bullying, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Blood, Infidelity, Outing, Suicidal thoughts, Homophobia, and Violence

Moderate: Mass/school shootings

Minor: Sexual content and Cancer

siennaflynn's review against another edition

mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Hate crime, and Outing

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Mass/school shootings, Cursing, Grief, Mental illness, Medical content, and Murder

Minor: Cancer, Death, Gun violence, Drug use, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Transphobia, Car accident, Sexism, and Death of parent

katthecat's review against another edition

mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Suicide, Death, and Drug use

robinie142's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Cancer, Grief, Suicide, and Outing

Minor: Mass/school shootings and Drug use

wild_mustang's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes

3.25

It was fine.
Pretty much just teen drama - sex, drugs, alcohol and depression. Oh, and trying to stay out of jail - but to be honest there wasn’t heaps of focus on the murder mystery. At least there wasn’t until the last 100 pages or so.

Personally, I didn’t really care for the romance sub-plots either.

The writing was also in a more juvenile voice than what I normally read, which makes sense because it’s first person perspectives from teenagers, but it took me a little while to get used to. Additionally, many of the plots were very trope heavy and painfully stereotypical at times

However, if was a very easy read and only took like 7hrs so it gets an average 3 star rating. The extra quarter of a star is an appreciation of some of the authors writing choices and the execution of perspective narrations to reveal relevant things in the intended literary light and at the right narrative time.

I recently studied Reader-Response Theory and I think, in this light, McManus did a very good job at writing for the implied reader (so the rating is bumped up), however, I really don’t think that I am the implied or intended reader (so it’s still a fairly average rating).

To take a strategic leaf from Simon’s tumblr…
JT recommended this to me and I’m not mad I read it but I certainly don’t care to continue the series.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Outing

Moderate: Alcoholism, Violence, Cursing, and Homophobia

Minor: Addiction, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Vomit, Abandonment, Sexual content, Cancer, Car accident, Sexual assault, Mass/school shootings, and Self harm

bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

4.0

This was an entertaining read, it was fairly fast paced and it held my attention. I enjoyed getting to know the characters through their own perspectives! I didn’t like Cooper’s POV as much for awhile because it was a lot of baseball talk which I just don’t care for 😅 but he grew on me eventually! The first half of the book was really good but I didn’t love the second half.

I didn’t guess any of the twists which is always a plus for me! However the reveal was kind of disappointing (and a bit of a cop out in my opinion). It just didn’t excite me and I wasn’t racing to find out the answers with this like I normally do with thrillers. The ending was also underwhelming-it’s the ending of book 1 in a thriller series, where is the cliffhanger? This could even be read as a stand alone I think 😅 I will however be picking up book 2 this weekend because it fits a prompt for a readathon I’m doing, otherwise I’d be in no rush to continue.

Overall it’s entertaining and a quick read but left me feeling underwhelmed in the end. I’d still recommend if you’re looking for an easy thriller with well developed characters!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Bullying, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, and Outing

Moderate: Homophobia, Cancer, Addiction, Mental illness, Infidelity, Drug abuse, Mass/school shootings, and Suicide

Minor: Car accident, Vomit, Self harm, and Suicide attempt

ansuya's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Outing

Moderate: Gun violence and Cancer