(Book review)

“Things’ll get worse before they get better.”
― Karen M. McManus, One of Us Is Lying

Five students are detained by circumstances. Only four remain alive. Yale hopeful Bronwyn has never publicly broken a rule. Sports star Cooper only knows what he’s doing in the baseball diamond. Bad boy Nate is one misstep away from a life of crime. Prom queen Addy is holding together the cracks in her perfect life. And outsider Simon, the creator of the notorious gossip app at Bayview High, won’t ever talk about any of them again. He dies 24 hours before he could post their deepest secrets online. Investigators conclude it’s no accident. All of them are suspects!

I usually love detective stories, but this one disappointed me. Interestingly, when I bought the book, I found mostly positive reviews, everyone said how much they liked this work and how unexpected the killer turned out to be, in hiding his identity. I was amazed; I was interested in the plot, and the characters and their interaction, and what would come of it. And, well…It became a real disappointment. However, let`s discuss everything in order. Let’s start with the pros.

An idea. The author placed five completely different and seemingly unfamiliar people in one room. As a result of the accident, one of the students dies, and suspicion, obviously, falls on the other four. And, as it turns out, each of them has something to hide. Can they trust each other? Is one of them really the killer or real killer is operating behind the scenes? What are others hiding? — This is a striking beginning for the detective. The situation turns out to be surprisingly interesting; a masterpiece could have been made from all this if the conventional “pen” had fallen into the right hands, but we have what we have.

Writing style. The author has a pretty good one, she meaningfully described the necessary things and succinctly the backgrounds. She doesn’t have anything too boring or too long. That’s cool.

Characters. It can be seen that the characters are thought out in advance and each one is different. I liked that each of the characters with their own problems, family relationships and secrets. It was a good decision to keep up the tension all the time by gradually heating up the plot with new evidence against one or another character.

And now let’s talk about the minuses, of which, for me personally, there are a lot. I will try to reduce it to the main things and not include too many details here.

Plot holes. Oh, and they are, and a lot of them. We are told that the sister of one of the main characters is a hacker from God, is her skill mentioned in the book? Only once, despite the fact that she is one of the most interested people in solving the mystery. Two classmates have gone through a deadly adventure after which, as the author assures us, they have become best friends forever. Did we see them together after that? Lol, dream on. And these are only a couple of examples that I mentioned now, but there were many, many more.

Obviousness. This annoyed me the most. The genre of the book is literally a detective story, which should keep you in suspense until the very end, which should be like a complex puzzle that the reader solves together with the main characters, but this is not the case. The actions of the characters are predictable. Somewhere in the middle, you can already tell who is the killer, and who will be the secret puppeteer at the end. I hoped to the last that the author would twist it in such a wonderful way that the name of the criminal would be the least expected and the last plot twist would be no worse than a roller coaster. Hopes were in vain.

Favoritism. It would seem that we have four main characters, each of whom is a bright and deep personality with his or her own feelings and problems. What should you do when you have four, I repeat, four (!!!) main characters? It`s correct to distribute sections in such a way that everyone has an equal share and no one is left in the shadows. Did the author do it? Dear God, of course not. She chose one favorite character, on whose behalf she wrote almost every second chapter. And since another one of the four was her love interest, almost the entire book is focused on their feelings, falling in love, doubts about whether the loved one is a murderer, etc. And that would be great IF THERE WERE NOT FOUR MAIN CHARACTERS. It’s ironic that my favorite characters are the two that the author kept forgetting about. But I was ready to dance with joy when I came across chapters about them. I am generally silent about the afterword, I saw their names only twice, because really, who needs them when we have a couple in love? Please do not forget that this is still not a romantic work, but a detective story!

So, what can be said in general about the book ‘One Of Us Is Lying’ by Karen M. McManus. The book is of average quality, written in the simple language, and you won’t have any difficulty with it. If you like two wrong main characters, my condolences. I also sympathize with you if you have a good memory and good logic, and if it’s all together, then RIP. Read at your own risk, but be prepared that from a really interesting detective there is only an idea and not bad (not “good”, but “not bad”!) written characters. If you want to read a real detective, I advise you to choose an old but practical classic — Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle. But certainly not on “One Of Us Is Lying”.

I give this book three out of ten.