A review by agoldendear
One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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

4.0

This book wasn't exactly what I expected--I was thinking it would be more mystery-heavy. Not that it didn't involve people trying to solve a murder case, but it was much more focused on the personal lives and character development of the book's main characters than I was hoping for. That was a little disappointing, but I still ended up liking the book for the most part. The main characters had depth, and I didn't hate anyone aside from the characters I was supposed to hate. Overall, this wasn't my favorite mystery I've ever read, but I did end up enjoying it for the most part.

Parts that did annoy me (a bit more spoilery, so I'm sticking them all in a spoiler warning):
1. This book basically portrays the police as useless--they can't find any evidence except for incredibly shaky stuff and generally seem pretty incompetent. Of course, I know that police aren't perfect in real life (or even good a lot of the time) but they should be able to conduct an investigation better than a bunch of teenagers in a fictional setting. They literally put someone in jail due to a bit of falsified evidence that these teenagers rightfully point out as being incredibly suspicious. I feel like this is a common thing in teenage-focused mystery novels.
2. Man, those teenagers were horny. They were often either making out with someone or thinking about making out with someone. I mean, that's probably realistic to teenagers, I guess? Not that it took away from the rest of the plot, it's just not something I am particularly interested in, so take my frustration with a grain of salt. I did like the main relationship in the book, though. Those two were fun together.
3. I did not like the breakup at the end. To clarify--I understood why Nate wanted to do it, but it was frustrating because it felt tacked onto the end of the book and he was tuning out everyone who was trying to be on his side. And then we don't get to see any of his perspective from the time he broke up with her to the time when they got back together, so I'm not sure why he decided to fix things. He just got convinced to do it...somehow.
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