“Some people are too toxic to live. They just are.”
-Karen M. McManus, One of Us Is Lying
Five unlikely students go into detention: Bronwyn, Addy, Nate, Cooper, and Simon. Simon, the creator of the school’s most popular gossip app, doesn’t make it out alive. Word on the street is that the day after he died, he was going to post juicy secrets about each of his four fellow classmates in detention, secrets that would shatter each of their reputations. Their secrets make them suspects in his murder. Or are they being framed? As police dig more into Simon’s death, one thing’s for sure: who would go the furthest to protect their secret?
I listened to this book on audio, and I actually really enjoyed it in that format. There were four different speakers for each of the narrators, making it easy to tell who’s story you were on. Listening to it on audio also helped to build the suspense–who really did it?
The suspense was built really well with the plot, intertwined with plot twists and red herrings that drew your attention away from who the real killer was. At the surface, the characters seem to be just portrayals of typical high school stereotypes: the nerd (Bronwyn), the popular girl (Addy), the bad boy (Nate), the jock (Cooper), and the outcast (Simon). But as we learn the secrets each character is hiding, we learn there’s more to their story than meets the eye. McManus artfully reveals each of her characters while the suspense is unfolding.
McManus’s book is a bit like a modern day Breakfast Club with a murder mystery thrown in. If you’re a fan of the show Riverdale and are looking for a twisty, high school mystery, this is definitely the book for you.
4/5 stars