The superb book 'One Of Us Is Lying' by Karen McManus is truly captivating and shocking. This book is about the story of what happens when five students who are strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. This book follows the lives of Bronwyn, the brain, who never breaks a rule, Addy, the beauty, who strives to be home coming princess, Nate, the criminal, is already on probation, Cooper, the athlete, is a all-star baseball pitcher and Simon, the outcast, who is the creator of Bayview High's notorious gossip app. Simon, never makes it out of that classroom. According to detectives, his death was not an accident. When he died on Monday it had been clear that on Tuesday he was planning to post secret reveals about all four of his classmates in detention making all four of them suspects. Who is responsible? Who is lying?

 

I enjoyed this book very much. I read the full book in one reading and could not put it down because of how mysterious and wondrous it is, i wanted to see who was lying! This book has similar characters like the movie 'The Breakfast Club', which if you enjoyed this book, i would recommend that classic movie and also a great book called 'We Were Liars' by E. Lockhart. This book carries different perspectives throughout it with the different characters and really goes into depth on what their lives are like, why they are the way that they are. It is not just a murder mystery book the entire time, which will make the ending even more shocking because you will not expect it as the book switches from calm to mysterious, to who killed Simon, not sure, back to calm. I also really liked it because as readers we are not aware of who is lying, so this book will get you thinking and analyzing and almost wondering like a detective. There are clues in this book as well, which makes the reading experience more enjoyable because you are not just reading but using critical thinking to come to the conclusion on who could be lying using key clues throughout the book. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in murder mystery, crime books or movies. Not just that genre though.  I was not a fan of murder mystery until i read this book, so frankly, i could recommend this to anyone who is not impatient.

 

This novel really goes into the lives of these characters and gives us readers plenty of information about their current state or what influenced their personality.  I would say the characters are a bit cliche when it comes to the stereotypical categories of high school students, but they are all well developed as throughout the book we learn more about them.  It is not just this is their personality for the entire book, it changes. The book was very well written and the author does an excellent job of writing in the point of view of these characters so well. The grammar is extremely easy to read and comprehend, which makes it accessible for anyone who cannot read that well too. The only con to this book is the ending. It is a bit disappointing considering the suspense throughout the novel, but that is just me. Considering this book has a YALSA top ten best fiction book nominee and a Goodreads best young adult book of the year nominee i would say it is worth a read.