One Of Us Is Lying is the first book I read for Buzzwordathon (buzzword this time was “lie”, “liar”, “lying”). It’s a YA Mystery/Thriller that reminded me of The Breakfast Club.

Title: One Of Us Is Lying

Author: Karen M. McManus

Published May 2017 by Delacorte Press

Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Contemporary

“Pay close attention and you might solve this.
On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention.
Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule.
Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess.
Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing.
Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher.
AndSimon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High’s notorious gossip app.
Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon’s dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn’t an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he’d planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who’s still on the loose?
Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.”

“People who lie deserve payback.”

This is the story of four Bayview High students, who would normally have nothing to do with each other, end up working together to solve the death of a fellow student, Simon. Simon used an APP he created called “About That” to air dirty laundry and unveil lies students have told (reminds me of Thirteen Reasons Why). Bronwyn, Cooper, Addy, and Nate, were with Simon when he had an anaphylactic reaction and died. The cops find it strange that Simon’s last post revealed secrets that the four students had, giving them a motive to kill Simon.

“Things’ll get worse before they get better.”

Cooper is a talented baseball pitcher with an overbearing father.

Nate is the “bad boy”, on probation for selling drugs.

Addy is the spoiled princess.

Bronwyn is the smart one.

“I know what it’s like to tell yourself a lie so often that it becomes the truth.”

I love the relationship between Addy and her sister Ashton. The story is written from multiple perspectives, which makes it very exciting trying to piece together what each student knows in order to try and solve Simon’s death.

“Unless one of us is lying. Which is always a possibility.”

Does this book have tropes and stereotypical characters? Yes. Big time. But somehow it didn’t annoy me (except for a few issues with female representation which I’m not gonna get into). I really liked the characters, who reminded me of people I knew in high school. Nate is my favourite character by far, which is odd because I despised him completely during the first 25% of the book.

“She’s a princess and you’re a jock,” he says. He thrusts his chin toward Bronwyn, then at Nate. “And you’re a brain. And you’re a criminal. You’re all walking teen-movie stereotypes.”

One Of Us Is Lying is a fast-paced mystery I recommend to readers over 16 years old.

Trigger Warnings: depression, mental illness, drug use, mental abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, abandonment, death, teens drinking alcohol, consent.

” Karen M. McManus is the New York Times bestselling author of the young adult thriller One of Us Is Lying, which has been translated into 38 languages worldwide. Her second book, Two Can Keep a Secret, will be released in January 2019. Karen lives in Massachusetts and holds a master’s degree in Journalism from Northeastern University, which she mostly uses to draft fake news stories for her novels. For more information, visit www.karenmcmanus.com or @writerkmc on Twitter and Instagram.”