One Of Us is Lying
By Karen M. McManus
Sophie (Grade 9)
4.5/5
One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus is a story about the investigation of the murder of Simon Kelleher.
Five students entered detention, but one freak car accident and a cup of water later, Simon Kelleher is dead. Simon was the Mastermind of a gossip app called About That, where he exposed other students' darkest secrets and made a lot of enemies doing so. Each of the other four students has a motive to kill, but no one seems to know who did it.
The police are all over the case, creating drama and chaos in the teens' lives as secrets, exploited, and confessions, made. Adding to the confusion, the murderer is posting on Tumblr, bragging about how they killed Simon and dumping loads of suspicion on the four students.
I enjoyed reading this novel. It was engaging, suspenseful, and had something around every corner. I'm also a sucker for romance, and it had some of that as well! I loved the twist ending, as it made rereading the book quite interesting.
The book switches between the perspectives of the four students throughout the novel, but I found it to be more entertaining to read because I was trying to figure out who the murderer was. I could see their thoughts and how they took in information about the murder. I got lost a couple of times while reading because of the constant switching and had to flip back a few pages to see which perspective I was seeing from, though.
I'd recommend this book for grades seven and above because there's some swearing and the first words of chapter one are the words "a sex tape." I also feel like it'll be a little cheesy or immature for anyone rereading it, but I did like finding the clues!
I'd also recommend it to teachers to read with their class, or to assign reading assignments about. I would have liked to do something like that in grade 7 because all the events and details will give the students something to think about. On the same topic, the misdirection will be great for group discussions, because of all the different possible scenarios and paths for the story to take.
Happy reading!