One of us is Lying by Karen McManus

This review is long overdue. 

 

I finished this book three weeks ago, and I'd be lying if I said the story is still fresh in my mind. Because it isn't. But I remember enough of it for a short spoiler-y review. I was about to hit the pillows but for some reason that escapes me I started thinking about this story, and I wasn't about to go to sleep with the review just brewing in my head. 

 

I've heard so much about One of Us is Lying from BookTube and BookTok and all the other Bookplatforms out there that my expectations were through the roof. I knew nothing about the book, and the title was mysterious enough that I started fantasising about some really intricate murder plot with all these twists and a mindblowing ending. Instead, I was smacked with some high school shenanigan and an anticlimactic ending. Come on, it wasn't hard to guess Simon killed himself and tried to blame it on four other kids, although at some point I doubted it a bit with all the clues all over the place.

 

You know what they say - Don't judge a book by its title. 

 

Actually, yeah, no. That's not what they say, but I'm saying it. 

 

Come to think of it though, with the clarity of retrospection, it does look like a teenager-y book. And I think, after having read OOUIL and more recently A Very Large Expanse of Sea, I've realised that I'm not really into high school YA fiction. I loathe the high school part. And the fact that they're all American high schools is just eh. You always have to hear about a party somewhere. Like jeez, do y'all minors not have parents or something?

 

Anyway, I digress.

 

The story. It wasn't absolutely awful. Kind of pissy that about half of the main characters are cheaters with no depth and basically all the other characters have no personality at all. They've been façonnés from such generic clichés - the nerdy girl (If I remember correctly she even wears glasses? Bronwyn, right? I forget. But very cliché. Although I can't refute because all the nerds I know also wear glasses. I wear glasses too so I don't know what I'm on about), the IDGAF too-cool-for-school drug dealer with parents issues, the preppy blondie who gives off mini skirt, lipgloss and my-school-bag-is-a-birkin kind of vibes and the fourth (I beg you, memory, be wrong) - the athletic jock. 

 

I guess McManus had her reasons to take the four most basic high school clichés to be framed for Simon's suicide in disguise, but...could've been a tad more creative, no?

 

Character development was nonexistent.

 

That gore scene of the pretty girl getting thrashed by her boyfriend and cracking her skull open? Ouch, wtf. Why? Honestly, Karen, you did this for what? Might've just killed her off while you were at it though.

 

I honestly can't remember much else of it. BookTok disappointed me. This isn't a book that would make it in my tops. It's very, very far from it. Not Trash Tier, but eh. Maybe Okay Tier.

 

I don't feel like opening the book again to look for a fave quote. 

 

Toodles.