The extreme always seems to make an impression
Author : Karen M. McManus
Title : One of Us is Lying
Published : 01/06/2017
Pages : 368
Genre : Young Adult
Publisher : Penguin
Five students go to detention. Only four leave alive. For fans of Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars, this is the perfect high school thriller.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, 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. Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you'll go to protect them.
Over the past few years, I have come to greatly enjoy young adult crime fiction. Some of the books have become my favorites. so when I get a chance to find a new author in this genre I jump at the chance to give them ago. For the most part, the books I have read have not directly related to a death within a school. I have also not seen either of the t.v shows that the book had been compared to. So to some extent, I was going into this book a little bit blind. This is not such a bad thing at times as it allows a read to not go in with any preconceived notions.
With the charters in this book, we get the tried and tested stereotypes that where handed down to us from the films of the nineteen eighties. The jock, nerd, bad boy and the popular girl, sometimes thought it can be nice to fall in with such a familiar crowd. The backbone of the story is how it switches between each of these characters as much like our selves we scrabble to work out which one of them is responsible for the murder. As much as I tried to engage with them I found it increasingly more difficult to find any form of connection to these four. I suppose in a lot of ways it's because they play their parts out so well that they fall in line with the stereotypes they are based on. I am all ways looking for something new a twist on old characters or a story told from a different perspective.
With my lack of connection, you would think I would have little good to say about the plot. I felt the author put more effort into the mystery of the story. At the time it was difficult to know who to trust among these four. They all have a secret they are trying to bury and we are lead to believe that they care enough about stopping them from coming out that they are prepaid to kill someone. As with all these things, the police a hapless in there attempts to get to the bottom and jump from one piece of teenage gossip to the next in an attempt to get to the bottom of it. There are several twists throughout the story on it's way to the big reveal. But for me, they were just a little too obvious and brought not as much shock value as I'm sure they were intended. There is also the difficulty with which mental health issues are dealt with. I think the problem is with all the knowledge out there now, people are far more aware of the outcomes of such events.
When it comes to the end of the day this is not a bad book, It's just for me did not live up to what I could have been. Had it come out a few years ago I'm sure I would have had a better time with it, but with a lot of other like-minded books out there you have to go that little bit further to stand out.
Over the past few years, I have come to greatly enjoy young adult crime fiction. Some of the books have become my favorites. so when I get a chance to find a new author in this genre I jump at the chance to give them ago. For the most part, the books I have read have not directly related to a death within a school. I have also not seen either of the t.v shows that the book had been compared to. So to some extent, I was going into this book a little bit blind. This is not such a bad thing at times as it allows a read to not go in with any preconceived notions.
With the charters in this book, we get the tried and tested stereotypes that where handed down to us from the films of the nineteen eighties. The jock, nerd, bad boy and the popular girl, sometimes thought it can be nice to fall in with such a familiar crowd. The backbone of the story is how it switches between each of these characters as much like our selves we scrabble to work out which one of them is responsible for the murder. As much as I tried to engage with them I found it increasingly more difficult to find any form of connection to these four. I suppose in a lot of ways it's because they play their parts out so well that they fall in line with the stereotypes they are based on. I am all ways looking for something new a twist on old characters or a story told from a different perspective.
With my lack of connection, you would think I would have little good to say about the plot. I felt the author put more effort into the mystery of the story. At the time it was difficult to know who to trust among these four. They all have a secret they are trying to bury and we are lead to believe that they care enough about stopping them from coming out that they are prepaid to kill someone. As with all these things, the police a hapless in there attempts to get to the bottom and jump from one piece of teenage gossip to the next in an attempt to get to the bottom of it. There are several twists throughout the story on it's way to the big reveal. But for me, they were just a little too obvious and brought not as much shock value as I'm sure they were intended. There is also the difficulty with which mental health issues are dealt with. I think the problem is with all the knowledge out there now, people are far more aware of the outcomes of such events.
When it comes to the end of the day this is not a bad book, It's just for me did not live up to what I could have been. Had it come out a few years ago I'm sure I would have had a better time with it, but with a lot of other like-minded books out there you have to go that little bit further to stand out.
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