Reviews tagging 'Child death'

One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

51 reviews

jessicayaun's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Homophobia, and Child death

Moderate: Alcoholism, Bullying, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Addiction, and Alcohol

Minor: Alcohol, Car accident, Stalking, Medical content, Alcoholism, Sexual content, Outing, and Grief

creativeworld's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

An easy read and a fun mystery. The ending was satisfying, although I hate Nate the rest of the characters are good. Exactly the kind of book I was looking for. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Child death, Classism, Drug use, Addiction, Alcohol, Bullying, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Infidelity, and Car accident

Minor: Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Self harm, Mass/school shootings, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

conspystery's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

This book was extremely popular when I started high school-- I tried to read it a number of times, but I just couldn’t get into it and would always abandon it before finishing the first chapter. Recently, I came across the audiobook ready to borrow at my library, so I thought I’d give it one last try before I gave up on it. I’m glad I did, but even still, One of Us is Lying wasn’t as exceptional as I’d expected from all the hype.

I thought the plot was decently interesting, but I struggled to suspend my disbelief throughout the book. The actual premise of the murder mystery feels, to me, almost cartoonish. Peanut oil? Really? It just feels a little off, like the book wasn’t totally committed to the dark themes it later explores. Another place I found this was in Cooper’s character, unfortunately. I really liked him and his plotline, and I thought it was reasonably well done (if a little bit predictable)-- my issue was minor, but it was still there. In particular, I felt a little bit weird about

the subtext behind the emphasis on his Southern accent. To me, it felt like the Southern accent was being used as a subconscious red herring for his character arc, since a lot of the time the American South is associated with conservatism and, thus, homophobia. I think he comments on it after everything is revealed, how difficult it is to be gay in a Southern family. This is an interesting thing to explore, but I don’t know how I feel about the subtextual equation of Southernness and homophobia, even if it’s only used as a “gotcha” moment later on. If that wasn’t what his accent was included for… then why would it have been emphasized at all? It felt a little bit insincere and cheap to me, no matter how well the audiobook narrator sold it-- more on that later.

This was a recurring theme in the novel: tonal dissonance, between the plot and its themes or its characters and its details or anything at all, really. And not usually in a good or intentional way. 

Further on that point, there was a massive disparity between the stakes involved for each character. Bronwyn’s entire situation isn’t even remotely comparable to Cooper’s, or Addy’s to Nate’s-- I think probably this was to make some point about how our struggles are deeply subjective and influenced by our perceptions of life, and I do think Bronwyn, as the de facto protagonist, explores that at least a little bit in her character development. Even so, it was a bit jarring, and sometimes almost felt preachy, or too clean cut. The wide breadth of subject matter McManus takes on is serious in all of its facets, but to me most of its presentation feels filed down, made more easily consumable in this narrative. I understand this is YA, so some level of narrowing and predictability is to be expected, but I just wish there was more of a commitment to really going in depth here. All of that makes the ultimate resolution of the mystery somewhat contrived, anticlimactic, and even a little bit hokey, which takes away from the serious message it’s trying to convey.

This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy One of Us is Lying. I did. I thought the audiobook performance was genuinely phenomenal; I was about to write “especially Nate’s and Bronwyn’s sections” since Robbie Daymond and Kim Mai Guest were a huge reason I picked up the audiobook at all, but then I thought to add Cooper’s as standout, and also Addy’s, and then I found myself looking up the whole cast. So, an absolute round of applause to Robbie Daymond as Nate, Kim Mai Guest as Bronwyn, MacLeod Andrews as Cooper, and Sharon McManus as Addy-- they were awesome. No matter how contrived or simplified I felt the message of the book was, it was still a lot of fun. For a YA book, this does what it needs to do, and pretty well. It’s accessible to teens and relevant to them, probably, and I like the genuine care the narrative and author seem to have for their audience. My criticisms probably hail from the fact that I think I’ve somewhat aged out of YA, so I’m not the target audience for a book like this. If I’d read it five years ago as a freshman in high school, I think it would have been perfect for me, and maybe that’s all I can expect from it. 

My thoughts on the sequel are another story. But One of Us is Lying was overall a solid YA thriller, no matter how picky I am about it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, Toxic relationship, and Grief

Moderate: Drug use

Minor: Death of parent

The conclusion to the main mystery is both a massive spoiler and possibly intensely triggering, so I'll leave it under a spoiler tag:

be aware that this book contains a pretty detailed exploration of suicide.

Further (another spoiler), one of the plotlines contains

outing and homophobia as important character arc details.

This might not be the best book for you if you're sensitive to serious content matter, but don't want to be spoiled about the mystery first.

sebradley29's review

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Gaslighting, Child death, Car accident, Alcohol, Violence, Drug use, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Outing, Murder, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Hate crime, Death, and Bullying

fe_aye's review against another edition

adventurous informative mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Solid book. I almost ended up DNFing due to my lack of meshing with the characters at the beginning, but as I kept reading they really grew on me. I didn’t much care for the character to begin with but after they had some development they really got much better, especially Addy. 
It was also very well crafted and the resolution was both surprising yet grounded worked really well, I’m glad I stuck with this one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Abandonment, Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Alcoholism, Homophobia, Outing, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Bullying, Classism, Confinement, Mental illness, and Gun violence

thomas_the_capricorn's review

dark tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Self harm

Moderate: Suicide

Minor: Child death and Toxic relationship

taelights's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I feel like this is the only book I've ever read where the adaptation is better. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Mental illness, Murder, Outing, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Grief, Cancer, Drug use, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Death, Suicide, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Violence and Mass/school shootings

taylorsevalia's review

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death, Child death, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Self harm, Violence, Abandonment, Alcohol, Cursing, Drug use, Eating disorder, Grief, and Terminal illness

Minor: Car accident, Injury/Injury detail, Outing, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Confinement, Mass/school shootings, Sexual content, and Vomit

abbyycadabbyy's review

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

4.5

    This book... when I first started it, I thought it was going to be good, I never thought it would be as good as it was. Once I started the book, I didn't want to put it down.

       The author does an amazing job at making each person look as guilty as whoever the actual murderer is. Each person has their own reason for why they would have killed Simon. Throughout the book I kept changing who I suspected might be the killer, yet I was never on the dot. Currently this is one of my favorite authors. I love her ability to make you second guess everything you thought you knew. 
  
       The author does a really good job at making all the characters relatable and loveable. Out of the main four Nate has to be my favorite. The way his family life is reminds me of my own. The relationship that blossoms between him and the other three shows a lot of character growth from him. 

     This book had me lying in bed screaming "WHAT!" so many times. Exited for the second one!

     I gave this book 5 stars when I read it, it was one of the first books I had ever read. I really think it is a good book but I don’t think it is as good as my other 5 star books. Therefore, I will be bumping it down to a 4.5 stars.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Homophobia, and Outing

Moderate: Abandonment, Mass/school shootings, and Suicide

Minor: Alcoholism and Death of parent

tbs250's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Outing, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Sexism, Misogyny, Alcohol, and Addiction