Review by Julia
One Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High enter detention. An hour later, one of them, Simon, is dead, and the other four are suspects in his murder. Was it Cooper, a star athlete with a domineering dad? Bronwyn, the driven overachiever who hopes to get into Yale? Addy, the popular princess obsessed with her boyfriend? Nate, the drug dealer who’s already on probation? As the narration bounces from one suspect to the next, we learn that all four of them are hiding big secrets—secrets Simon was preparing to reveal on the gossip app he created to monitor the social scene at Bayview. All four have a lot to lose, and any of them could be lying about their role in Simon’s death. So the question is: which one of them is?
This book’s strongest feature is the tremendous sense of suspense it creates as it guides the reader towards the answer to this question, which is bolstered by the complex relationships that develop between the characters along the way. The alternating narration keeps intrigue high throughout by allowing McManus to dole out small dollops of information at a time, and, as in any good suspense story, the plot is sprinkled with twists—some fairly easy to spot, others less so. Still, the pacing is masterful; this is the kind of can’t-put-it-down-til-you-finish-it read that’s itching for a movie or TV adaptation (which is apparently already in the works, according to Deadline). Despite its tightly plotted structure, however, the book does leave something to be desired when it comes to character development and style. Though McManus manages to give her characters a depth and nuance belied by their easy-to-apply labels (to wit: athlete, brain, princess, criminal, and basket case, as immortalized by The Breakfast Club, a film to which this book pays unmistakable homage), they do ultimately end up hewing fairly closely to their assigned tropes, right down to the “unexpected” romance between two of the murder suspects. Readers seeking lyrical prose or in-depth character studies should look elsewhere, but for those in search of a dishy drama more addictive than potato chips, One of Us is Lying is the book for you.
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