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storytimed 's review for:
One of Us Is Lying
by Karen M. McManus
For a moment, I thought about reading Book 2 because your girl loves a thriller, but.............. yeah, nah. Mid.
This is sort of a Breakfast Club take, with the gimmick that the Nerd (creator of a gossip app) dies! dramatically! in detention!!!
And the book spirals from there, slowly exposing everyone's secrets. Bronwyn cheated on a test. Nate is a drug dealer to SUPPORT HIMSELF and his ALCOHOLIC DAD. Clay is gay. Ashton cheated on her boyfriend.
It's all set in San Diego, which you really would not have noticed (could be any anonymous high school), but I did appreciate that the book tried to match the demographics of SD a little bit. Bronwyn is half-Colombian, Clay's girlfriend is Filipina, one of the basketball guys is Latin American, there are various Asian names scattered throughout the novel...
The secrets were not actually that compelling, but McManus is very good at drip-feeding the information to us, thriller style! I did do the thing where I flip forward a bit to follow my favorite characters just bc I'm impatient at how much the narrative drags, but that was more because I was bored by the narrative spinning in circles than super invested in any one character
Honestly in hindsight what stands out to me the most is how ludicrously incompetent both the school administration and police are in this book! Like, howwwwww did the school allow this gossip app bullshit to go on?
And the twist Simon killed himself in some kind of absurd play for revenge, assisted by Ashton's evil boyfriend was very guessable
But I guess this was good enough to keep my attention....... for a little bit.........