One of Us Is Lying
Ratings483
Average rating3.7
The story was really good. I liked how everyone has secrets and how they grew together as a group. The ending was also really good with focussing on Simon being a fucking dick and doing it to himself. Although the way Cooper's story was told took me off this book.
Everyone's secret became clear pretty quickly in their inner monologue and many also just told people pretty quick. You also got a great glimpse into their lives that gave the characters depth. Except in Cooper's case. His boyfriend was used as a plot twist that came after 200 pages and his life and chapters before that were bland and one-dimensional. Many of the characters had major character development before we even found out Cooper was gay. Making sexuality a plot twist in itself is bad in my opinion. It made the book unbalanced and less good.
I liked this!the drama, the mysteryat some point (after that site which Simon used to write in was exposed) I thought this might be the case.I've read “Give a Boy a Gun” before and I liked it, this was in a different way, and you know, from different perspectives. but I still feel bad about Simon.I liked how TJ and Addy didn't end up together; I wanted them to, but this was realistic and I'm proud of Addy in general. I liked the character development. :)I hated Jake from the start; or I guess it's better to say: from the “wear something more cute” scene.I liked reading about Cooper and his relationship with his dad.“Pop loves cooperstown. He loves when I strike out the side and get attention from flashy scouts, and when my name scrolls across the bottom of ESPN. But me? He doesn't even know me.”Bronwyn's fair of disappointing her parents. Cooper's fair of how his dad will react and how his younger brother will feel after he comes out.Nate :) how he was abandoned and how he was taking care of himself. his life with all the drug-dealing and hook-ups with girls. how he lied about his mother being dead. how he felt she's gonna leave again.Jake was one of the scariest characters I guess. and that so-called-friend of Addy! writing things on her locker and making her fall and hurt herself. how Jake (probably) threw condoms on Cooper.I don't really know how I feel about Bronwyn and Nate's romance. I just know I kinda liked it and I wasn't the happiest when Nate went to juvenile and also when he decided to end things between them. but I still don't know how compatible those two were. I hope they'll be happy. :]oh and I loved the short hair, the bike, the new attitude of Addy!of course I liked Maeve and Ashton. and Addy's mother made me feel bad. about her life and her thoughts and all the women thinking like her. and how they make their daughters feel bad about themselves.people! the attention towards Cooper and Nate after the news from girls and how they were fan girling for these two. how they enjoy things like it's a tv show and forget these four are real teenagers.I don't like the fact that it seemed like Cooper didn't cheat on his girlfriend. just because you're gay doesn't mean you can cheat on someone and that's ok. :
The reason I'm not giving this book 5 stars is because I felt like at some point the murderer was reaaaally obvious and everything was so predictable. I did enjoy it though.
This was really fun - the mystery was intriguing, keeping me thinking and guessing, and the kids were interesting, sympathetic characters. They all appear to be tropes at the beginning, but their stories deepen into believable, textured human narratives.
*3.5
Liked the pace of this book, i can definitely see why its been made into a tv show. I wanted a bit more from the ending though, its been tied in a nice little bow and hasnt left me wanting to immediately pick up the next book
Finished it at one sitting. That was a fun ride.
I do say that there is this one inconsistency in the end with the Addy's placed phone. But other than that, it was a cool story.
“You find out who your real friends are when stuff like this happens.”
Finished this a few weeks ago and I have no thoughts on it. I don't hate it and at the same time, I don't love it. It's such a complicated feeling coz whenever I think of the book my mind goes completely blank.
So giving this a neutral rating.
Halfway through I wanted to stop, but at the same time, I wanted to see who the killer was.
Ans even though the reveal was kind of unexpected it wasn't a ‘wow' factor.
I don't read much YA. I read this because my daughter had it on her shelf and I decided to read it because I like shifting narrators. It was super fast. Typical short sentences common in YA. My only handicap early on was keeping the characters straight. I enjoyed the unfolding of the characters' different plot lines and of course their lies that slowly catch up to them. Some endings were improbable- no spoiler but the Yale bit- and some were on trend- the athlete- but overall it was a fun read. Well worth my time.
Needed a detour from my normal genres, and this was just the trick! Lots of drama, and pieces left like breadcrumbs throughout the story (a bit too obviously at times, but it is YA so that is understandable). Overall, a great summer read.
There are some sensitive subjects discussed in the book- I would recommend checking with someone who has read it before ( including myself) if you have any severe triggers before reading.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and grew super attached to the characters. The typical high school teen tropes stand strong, but you can't help but love the characters and their flaws. I can't wait for the film/show adaptation. I would recommend this book if you like the group dynamic of The Breakfast Club; if you like the edgy teen, rom-com romances of Sarah Dessen; or if you like the who-dunnits like Knives Out. Humble brag, but I did guess the murderer before the end. So if any detective agencies are hiring, where shall I send my application?
Such a fun read, especially as a San Diegan! Loved the SD references. Overall, a light, intriguing read that sparked my love of reading again! :-)
Such a lovely written book! Short chapters, ideal for someone like me with short concentration to read. I liked how we read from all people's perspective and got to know them a little better.
I stayed up all night to finish this book, and i'd definitely recommend it!
While the mystery of this book was interesting and I could get past the stereotypes, I could not get past the portrayal of person's death by suicide being the main plot twist. The demonization of a person who was suffering is absolutely cruel. The systematic display of how his the four students “contributed” to his suicide and how another student benefitted from his suicide is an especially villainous plot on the part of the author. The book was okay until it got this final twist. Really so embarrassed for all the times that I've recommended this book to teens.
I have seen this one around a lot so I finally decided to jump in and I was pleasantly surprised. I honestly wasn't sure about this one when I started it
Real rating: 3,5* stars
I was completely ready to give this book 3 stars, but then the part where Nate got arrested pulled up and everything got way more fast-paced, exciting and mysterious. The others were rushing to found the truth at last now that one of them is behind bars and that is what really got me absorbed into the pages.
Everything before that part I liked, especially Bronwyn and Nate, but not that much.
The POV's were often short and in the beginning I even found them a little confusing cause they switched a lot and their personalities didn't seem as defined (because of the shortness and switching of the pov's).
What also annoyed me was the way Janae defended Simon. His behavior was gross and even got more gross as he continued down his spiral. Yet she kept defending him even when she started to back down from Simon and Jake's plan.
And god, Jake is such an a**hole.
I liked it fine enough, but this book kind of made me realize that I think I'm at the point where I'm aging out of reading YA books set in high school. Some YA books are still favorites, but I have no desire to read about teens in high school any longer.
This is basically The Breakfast Club with murder involved. I tend to rate thriller/mystery books based on how quickly I figure out the twist, and this one I saw coming from a mile away. Still, it was enjoyable, but not enough for me to want to continue the series.
Let me just start off by saying that if I would have read this book before finding my passion and true love for reading and mystery, suspense books of all kind, I would have without a doubt given this book five stars because it is a good, entertaining read. However, because I've read a bunch of mystery suspense novels before this one, this one just falls flat in comparison. It's kind of like watching a very entertaining, however not quite moving chick flick, you enjoy it at the moment but it doesn't stay with you past that. Also, because I did enjoy it nonetheless, I will be reading the other book in the series, just maybe not right away.
This novel is about a group of high school students who find themselves in detention together and after some things happen, one of them ends up dead. The rest of the story is trying to figure out who did it and why. It was an interesting plot, even if the characters were a bit cookie-cutter and the setting of it taking place in highschool just further proved to me that I have somewhat outgrown those kinds of stories. I did like how we get to the solution, it wasn't revealed all at once and it was gradual, even if I knew who the bad guy was from very early on. I'm not usually one to ever guess the ending but it was rather predictable and pretty obvious, even to me.
Further on, the characters were probably my favorite part of this novel. Even though they were kind of on the surface and pretty stereotypical, I still grew to care about them because of the things they went through together and the way their relationships formed and developed with each other. I think that is the strongest part of this novel, the relations the characters formed with each other throughout the novel. I also loved the amount of development the characters underwent and how they transformed all throughout the novel. For this reason I will be reading McManus' other novels and the rest in this series.
Finally, the writing style was simple but it worked for the setting and the overall vibe of this story. It got the story across without any problems and made for a well laid out and paced novel. I think it also helped with the characterization because even though the kids were in high school, we were able to see them progress and mature and develop without the writing style taking away from it. The characterization spoke for itself and the writing style did it's job at getting that across.
In conclusion, I would recommend this to the younger readers or to those just starting out with the mystery suspense genre. I wish I would have read it back in school because than I would have loved it for sure. All in all, not bad but not memorable either.
I enjoyed it but I wasn't very surprised by the ending. The build up to figuring out who was the murderer felt a little flat and when it ended I just didn't care much because I already predicted it. All the hype made me expect a lot more from this story.
The characters were likable and I was definitely rooting for all 4.
Overall, enjoyable and entertaining. I just think I wanted a shocking twist. A bang. And it didn't happen at least for me.
Nice take on an old plot style. Possibly a little predictable, but it still has you guessing most of the way through.
Felt a bit to much like a Breakfast Club rip off for the first few chapters, but after that it thankfully stopped and became its own thing
This book was so so good that if it was made into a movie or a tv series I'm sure of binge watching, it was that dramatic and filmy tbh.
Enjoyed this one a lot. The mystery was well executed. I'm usually fantastic at Sherlocking, but this one managed to catch me off guard.
3.5. A pleasant surprise. I found this book highly compelling, very convincing and great fun!