Reviews with content warning for Child death - One of Us Is Next

I am noticing more and more that Karen M. McManus' books, especially the ones she published in 2020 (The Cousins and One of Us is Next) rely heavily on mundane details as filler for the story. The amount of times a character will "fill a glass half full" before drinking it or turn the light switch on or tap a few buttons on their phone is truly astonishing. Some monotonous tasks can be necessary for the story, but I felt like I was reading about these pointless details because McManus couldn't find anything else to put into the story to get the readers from Point A (the crime) to Point B (the culprit/unmasking). McManus comes up with these amazing plot ideas, and then readers are left floundering around, watching the characters talk about nothing and do nothing until the climax of the book. I did think the solution to the mystery was satisfying and not too predictable, and the same goes for all of her other works (except One of Us is Lying, ironically). Yet I can't remember anything important that occurred after the inciting incident and before the climax, except maybe two bread crumbs for who the mastermind behind the game and the murder is.
Also, I wholeheartedly feel that representation is important, but reading about Maeve's culture and knowing the book was written by a white woman made me feel weird. I hope she used sensitivity readers.
I never go into a McManus book looking for character development, but The Cousins showed slightly more development than her other works, so I was hopeful for this one. I shouldn't have been. None of the characters developed at all, except maybe Knox, but it was such cookie-cutter and one-dimensional development that I don't think it should count.
The romances in all of McManus' books are also so generic that at points I literally thought Maeve was dating Knox and Phoebe was dating Luis instead of the other way around. I feel like McManus pairs up her characters for no reason other than "kids like reading romance, right?" I didn't ship any of the relationships, and that's coming from me, one of those kids who likes reading romance. It sounds strange to say the characters had no chemistry when I'm talking about a book, but they didn't. I couldn't understand why the characters were supposed to be good romantic counterparts to each other.
One last thing: aside from a few minor crossover characters (the Bayview Four appear in the book occasionally) and Maeve, there didn't seem to be a reason for making this a sequel to One of Us is Lying. Maeve could have been any other teen and the new gossip game had nothing concrete to do with Simon except for one throwaway line. If Simon got attention simply because of his app and not because of him, the high school doesn't need to have a history with Simon's gossip app in order for teens to pay attention to the new game. It felt like McManus took an unrelated plot idea and decided to write a sequel to profit off of her previous success. Which I get. Go get it, girl.
Did I enjoy this book? Sometimes. Are there better mysteries, even better books by Karen M. McManus, out there? Absolutely.

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booksiread_'s review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I was pretty disappointed by One of us is lying, but this book was so much better! It had multiple plot twist and I also liked the main characters more. It really is a good mysterious read.

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readwithsuzanna's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

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typedtruths's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

#1) One of Us Is Next ★★☆☆☆

read this because i'm determined to read all of the gr choice award nominees for the ya categories this year ✌🏻

➸ Trigger warnings for

public outing recounted, slut-shaming & victim-blaming, sexual assault (on-page & detailed), suicide recounted, alcoholism, alcohol consumption & abuse, cancer (mc in remission, relapsing discussed), minor blood depiction, emesis, hospital (multiple scenes), grief depiction, death of a father recounted, death of a classmate & ex-boyfriend (off-page), death of a child (off-page), death by a fall, murder & attempted murder, explosion & attempted bombing, death threats, blackmail, stalking, and bullying

▷ Representation: Bronwyn (sc) & Maeve (mc) Colombian-American; Cooper (sc) & Kris (sc) are mlm/gay.

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sorcha's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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angelicathebookworm's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I read McManus’ debut novel One of Us is Lying a few years ago and absolutely loved it. Not only did I end up rediscovering my love of YA and murder mysteries, but I also fell in love with McManus’ writing style and her characters. So, when the sequel One of Us is Next was released I went and got my hands on a copy immediately.

The sequel takes place over a year after the events of the first book and follows a new set of main characters. Instead of Bronwyn, Nate, Addy, and Cooper we follow these new set of events through the eyes of Maeve (Bronwyn’s younger sister), Knox (Maeve’s best friend), and Phoebe (Knox and Maeve’s classmate). We see at the very start of the novel that things seem to have settled down at Bayview High since nobody seems to have the insight into any and all school scandals quite like Simon did. That is until a game of digital Truth or Dare appears. There is no choice but for everyone to participate and the first person up on the chopping board is Phoebe.

There are a handful of similarities between this sequel and the previous book that I enjoyed seeing again. McManus uses first-person narration that flits between the various main characters with every new chapter. McManus executes this particular narrative style very well and it has become a sort of signature of hers as it’s used not only in the novel prior to this one but in all of her novels to date. The overarching atmosphere and tone throughout are also quite similar to the first book with it being a light and entertaining young adult read that’s also fairly action-packed. It’s also, on the whole, just as fast-paced as the first book—although it does start off quite slow to begin with—with some decent plot twists peppered throughout as well. While the overall feel of the novel is very similar to the first book, there are a number of differences. Some of which I enjoyed and others that sort of left me feeling somewhat disappointed.

The main thing I want to mention is the characters. While I didn’t exactly like all of the characters in the first book, I thought they were all really well developed, had distinct voices, and the chemistry between them really shone through. This time around I thought that these particular main characters were still well fleshed out but the chemistry between them just wasn’t there like it was with the original Bayview Four and, in all honesty, I found Maeve quite annoying and her actions more on the predictable side. Most of the new characters appeared sort of flat to me and I just didn’t connect with them as much as I did with the previous main characters which were what I loved the most. Also, it probably didn’t help much that the famous Bayview Four do make brief appearances throughout the sequel and even have their own subplots. I loved reading about them as much as I did in the first book which ended up being distracting and made me even more uninterested in these new protagonists. The lack of connection I had to these characters meant that I didn’t care that much when bad things started to happen to them, especially the characters that were just plain horrid and therefore didn’t garner much of my sympathy.

That being said there are a couple of things that were different that I really enjoyed seeing in this sequel. There were a lot more twists and turns to keep up with which really kept me on my toes. I went into this book expecting a plot twist anyway because of the first book but I wasn’t expecting as many as there were. I’m really glad this was the case because I did manage to guess what the big plot twist was, unlike with the first book, but I wasn’t able to guess that any of the other twists were going to happen. It also ends with quite a big reveal in the final few pages—something I definitely wasn’t prepared for—which sort of gets solved but is also written in a way that could allow for this series to become a trilogy. I absolutely loved the ending and the last few pages definitely improved my overall opinion and rating of the novel.

I definitely went into this book with very high expectations because of how much I adored the first book. I do think it’s a solid sequel but it just didn’t have the spark that the first book had for me and I think that was mainly down to the chemistry and the interaction between these particular protagonists. I would also say that I didn’t find them as likeable or memorable as many of the original characters. That and I think I really just wanted to read more about the original Bayview Four who absolutely stole the show for me in this book as well as the first. I also think there was also a lot more going on in this book. There were lots of smaller storylines and lots more surprises which—added to the fact it’s a character-driven novel filled to the brim with new and old faces—made me lose focus a few times which meant the shocking moments had less impact. I much preferred the one main storyline narrative like in the first book as it held my attention through every page and in turn made it more of a thrilling read. I’ll end by saying that if you loved the first book, especially the characters, as much as I did then try not to go into this book with very high expectations that way you’ll still enjoy it. On the other hand, if you thought the first book was only okay then the differences that McManus introduces here could mean that you may end up enjoying this sequel more.

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