Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - Such Charming Liars

3.5 stars

“Things'll get worse before they get better.”
That's a quote from One of Us is Lying, and oh boy, is it true.

REVIEW:
Going into Such Charming Liars, I wasn’t expecting too much, especially after my experience with One of Us is Lying. But this book really surprised me. While I anticipated some of the twists, a few of them caught me so off guard that I had to put the book down just to process what happened. Even though I saw some of the reveals coming, others hit with enough force to make the story feel gripping and unexpected. And the characters' trauma? Dang, that hit hard. This book definitely upped my personal view of McManus and her books.
And the characters' trauma? That hit deep. Especially Jamie's. This book definitely elevated my opinion of McManus and her writing.

The only issue I had was the pacing—it was all over the place. It started off slow, then suddenly, BAM, it throws unexpected twists at you. I was also hoping for more from the heist aspect of the book. I wanted a real heist, you know? While it's understandable since it's primarily a murder mystery, I would've loved to see more of those classic heist elements.

BOTTOM LINE:
Fun murder mystery, good plot twists

AGE RATING:
12+

Content Warnings

betweentheshelves's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This book feels different from McManus's other books, and I think it might actually be my favorite of hers this far. There are still lots of twists and turns that keep you guessing as you delve into the mystery, and I liked the heist aspect of the story. It was well-developed and made for an interesting plot.

Fans of McManus will definitely enjoy her latest installment.

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greenlivingaudioworm's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I guess when people are “tools,” all that matters is what they can do for you.

Karen McManus, the queen of young adult mysteries, is back with a mystery that is quite different from her other books. The whole plot isn’t wrapped around a murder. *gasp* Instead, we have an Ocean’s Eleven type book, which is really becoming my favorite type of mystery to read these days.

Cast of Characters:

Kat: a teenager who isn’t supposed to be following her mom’s last heist job but figured out a way to smuggle herself there regardless.
Jamie: Kat’s mother who is a jewel thief but wants out. She agrees to do this last job and then she’s cleaning herself up.
Ross Sutherland: the billionaire who is having a birthday party. Scene of the jewel heist.
Luke: A con man who makes up sob stories about him and his “young” son to get money out of unsuspecting women. Has his romantic claws in Ross Sutherland’s daughter. Was married to Jamie for 48 hours.
Liam: Luke’s teenage son who hates everything about Luke but ends up at the birthday party of Ross Sutherland so he can meet the new woman his father is interested in.

All of these characters end up in the same location one weekend. When a member of the Sutherland family ends up dead, no one knows who to trust. Jamie is sick and Kat doesn’t know who she can trust and the only person she feels she can turn to is Liam. Can she trust him?

While this was different from McManus’ other mystery books, I did still enjoy it. As expected with McManus, there were plenty of twists and turns so I wasn’t sure how things were going to pan out. I personally also enjoyed there were only two POVs to keep track of - sometimes I can get lost when there’s more than three characters telling the story. For whatever reason in this story I couldn’t keep everyone’s names straight so I kept mixing up who was who. That definitely impacted my enjoyment of the book. I do think teenagers are going to enjoy this book!

Content Warnings

actuallyjusthanne's review against another edition

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adventurous tense fast-paced

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

3.5

I have read every book by this author, and I am mainly glad that she is finally fully branching away from the high school drama/thrillers! I was really intrigued by the premise of this book and the jewel heist/scamming aspect of the book.

I was really invested in the first half/two thirds of the book, with how the characters were meeting and their backstories and premises. I really love the concepts of jewel heists and was really excited to see this book exploring it, especially with the stakes that it has.

The friendship developing between Kat, Liam, and Augustus was super fun! I wish we got to see more of Augustus' backstory--part of it is because he didn't have a perspective, and he was more of a minor character (or at least, he was meant to be). My favorite perspective was Liam's perspective: I thought that Kat's perspective was meant to be written as though it was supposed to be an unreliable narrator, but then it never got pulled off correctly, and her voice just turned out to be annoying and not a good storyteller. It was unfortunate, because I really liked her perspective at the start of the book, but then she started making one bad decision after another, and then it was reinforced that she was 16 and should really not have been in charge of doing all that, and the whole thing kind of fell apart.

My main issue with this book is that it seemed as though there was a lot of the story that was plotted but never explicitly said. I felt like the set up for the book wasn't ever particularly clear, and I had to gain backstory from reading the back blurb. The whole 24 hour marriage in Vegas thing was made the most clear in the back blurb, and all the characters of the Sutherland family were introduced in one fell swoop, which made it really hard to keep track of. Also, during the second half of the book it seemed like there was backstory and ties that were being connected together that the reader would have never been able to figure out, because it was never made explicit earlier in the book.

The whole role that Gem was playing was SO deeply unclear:

I really liked the parts of the book that she appeared in at the very beginning of the book, and I was hoping to see more of her.

I don't think that her character was well developed enough to be believable as the antagonist: it isn't a plot twist if the reader has no clue to expect it.

The same thing happened with the whole thing about

Jamie getting sick . . . we had no way to expect it being sabotage until Kat figured it out . . . way too easily it appeared???

and it just felt really jarring. Also, the role of

Morgan in the whole heist/family dynamic

didn't really make much sense. All in all, it just seemed like there should have been set up for the story when there just wasn't.

Also, what happened with the

necklace??? like...that is the crux of the story and we all just kind of collectively chose to ignore it??

. I thought that the things that were supposed to have a lot of weight weren't given the gravitas that they were supposed to have, but then there were full scenes that didn't end up connecting with the main story, like

Gem bringing Kat to scout out jewelry, and giving all the backstory on how they chose their targets, without that information ever paying off

the whole scene about Liam and Luke painting??? wtf was that about

There was a lot of heavier topics that were discussed, which I thought was good, but it was really only briefly mentioned. I also don't understand why the

48 hour marriage wasn't just annulled?? like how did it become a whole plot point that they never divorced??? and why did it not come up until very far into the book?? and if they hadn't divorced, why hadn't it come up with Kat or Liam for that long???

Overall, I thought this book had a lot of potential but it ended up a little half baked. The book wasn't even that long, and I think it would have really benefited from taking some more time to explore the backgrounds and motivations of all the characters, and it would make the story so much more hard hitting. This book was a fun read but all the storytelling did was make me frustrated.

Content Warnings

avidreaderandgeekgirl's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

4.0

This is one of her better ones! I found it less predictable, but I'm sure some people saw the main villain coming, I didn't however. There were enough villains that it was hard to tell who was truly evil and who wasn't.

There was a diversity in sexuality, with one bi/pan character, and one gay main character. But no diversity in the race of the characters, who were all white.

Overall, I found it enjoyable, though a bit darker than the author's other books. The MCs were likable but a lot of the lesser characters weren't.

Narrator(s) Rating: 4.5 stars

The narrators did an excellent job. They could have used a bit more vocal differences to characters for a 5-star rating.

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lauraelovesbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

There were a few times in the first 50% of this book that I seriously considered DNFing it. I didn’t feel connected to the characters and was not intrigued by the plot. I decided to keep reading and was happy to see that it did get better.

For me I think the first 60% would be a 2.5-3 🌟 and the last 40% a 4.5🌟

Not my favourite book from the author but I was pleasantly surprised how everything came together!

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bella_cavicchi's review against another edition

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adventurous funny tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Karen McManus writes, I read. Simple as that.

Content Warnings

bellebookcorner's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

If you’re looking for a YA mystery with a heist, dark lies and secrets worth killing for then this one might be for you!

The first 20% of the story is a bit slow since the author wants to introduce the key players to the readers and how they’re going to be connected to one another.

However, things will get a lot more interesting once the mystery starts with a sound of gun shot in a middle of a party…

This story is told in dual POV from the main characters – Liam and Kat.

At times, Liam appears too innocent to be involved in a heist, while Kat is the complete opposite of him - she’s reckless but also highly intelligent in a life or death situation.

But, that’s what makes them both interesting main characters for this story and despite how different they are and haven’t seen each other in years, they clicked and treat each other like family instantly.

The last few chapters are quite intense as the puzzle pieces started to come together, twist upon twist are thrown which can be quite overwhelming so I have to read it slowly to understand all of it.

But, I have to admit the last twist manage to surprise me real good!

Overall, it’s an enjoyable and entertaining mystery read with a satisfying ending.

This is not the first time I read a book by this author and won’t be the last, I’m looking forward to read more books in the future.

Thank you to TBR and Beyond Tour, Netgalley, author and publisher for giving me an e-ARC of the book and for having me on this book tour. I’m leaving this review voluntarily!

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