An incredibly gripping book from beginning to end. It may hold some stereotypes about people in high school but the character development shows that even if you fit into that mould you are completely unique. I simply couldn't put this book down and am excited to discover what this debut author has coming out in the future

Soooo....where do I begin? This book has been venturing into ever corner of the blogosphere with mostly positive reviews and thoughts. I got this e-ARC from NetGalley but then started it and never finished. Sadly, it expired so I could no longer read it. But then I managed to buy the book, so it's all good. 

I have to say I normally don't read books like One Of Us Is Lying. I mean yes I've read murder mysteries and school deaths but honestly, I really like how this book was put together. It's a realistic contemporary which surprised me. The story is told by the 4 suspects, Brownyn, Addy, Cooper and Nate. This book has a fantastic and intriguing premise which kept you glued to the pages. 

What I really liked about this book is how it really discussed and delves into certain topics and didn't gloss over them. Even though half the book wasn't about the 'murder' , it still manages to keep you turning the pages. You work out the voices after a while as they become more distinguished and it's really enjoyable. 

We have some wonderful characters. You end up really liking all of the four main characters. I admit I guessed half of the plot twist [ I guessed that it was a suicide but nothing about Jake but much later on. 50 pages in, I guessed that the car accident was no coincidence at all and that none of them (apart from Simon) was lying (h] but still...some of it surprised. 

It's incredibly well written, fast paced and full of mystery. To get 5 stars, I wanted a spark, to be blown away by the plot twist but I'm a genius? What can I say? Honestly, this review is a bit all over the place. I don't think it's entirely a memorable story, but a super good one! I guess I don't have much to say about books that are not fantasy. *shrugs*

My initial thought when I finished this one was 'what the actual fuck' and I'm still not really sure I think differently now. It was just so intense, I'm very impressed by Karen M. McManus' debut novel. 

The book is told in four POVs. At the beginning I had a hard time telling the characters apart. I just really couldn't connect with any of them but once I let go of the book for a while and then gave it another try I managed quite well after all. The writing was gripping and not a single moment was it boring, I would binge watch it if this book was a netflix show!

I really don't want to go much into detail about this book because everything is rather spoilery but let me put together the key parts for you:

Five kids end up in detention for the same exact reason but only four make it out alive. What happened to the fifth kid? He died. In detention. And all of the others are suspects as the boy who died was the infamous bully Simon who writes for Bayview High's gossip blog and knows secrets about all of them. Of course their teachers don't exactly believe him when they said that they did not mess with Simon's water bottle. Simon has a peanut allergy and someone poisoned him with peanut oil. But who was it?

Throughout the book we get to see the different lives of the main cast in this book and also their possible motives. We deal with their daily struggles in life and also with how they react to the death of one of their classmates. The characters quickly grew on me once I got to know them and I enjoyed the different roles they played in each life.

It could be absolutely everyone, but when it finally got out I was a little surprised as I didn't expect what happened in the end. Absolutely thrilling and exciting!

This book started off great, but this wasn't for me, I'm sorry to say. In the beginning, I got confused with the male characters. but great interaction between characters and a good storyline.

This needs to be made into a TV series. Awesome! Couldn't put it down.

Actual rating 4.5 stars!

One of Us Is Lying is a story of 5 teenagers who all arrive in detention for having phones in their bags, only four of them exit. 

Bronwyn, the brain the slightly nerdy good girl who follows the rules and is headed for Yale 
Addy, the beauty, the homecoming princess with perfect hair and the perfect boyfriend, the popular girl everyone wants to be!
Nate, the criminal, he is already on probation for dealing drugs, he has a shattered home life with a drug addicted mother who is presumed dead and an alcoholic father.
Cooper, the athlete, the baseball pitcher with a bright future in front of him
And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High's notorious gossip app. He has more or less shared all the secrets of the students of Bayview high.

This was a real twisty turney novel and I was hooked from the first chapter, one of the above characters dies in detention, what follows is a murder investigation where the reaming four of our students there that day are under suspicion, every one of have a secret that was about to be reviled, every one has a motive but who is guilty and is everything as it seems, bonds are formed and broken and secrets and lies are revealed.

I could not put this book down, I suspected every one of our characters at some point and I did not see the twist coming at all! I haven't read a good thriller in a while and this one ticked all the boxes, I felt that we really got to know and like all of our four suspects and could even relate to them, I didn't want any of them to be guilty and was worrying about each of them!.

I would highly recommend this book to thriller lovers out there and the addition of this being set in a high school added to the experience for me. Can't wait to see what this author comes up with next.

Excellent book for YA lovers and crime fans. Keeps you guessing all the way. Have sold this to many customers.

I first heard of One of Us is Lying during a #SundayYA chat on Twitter and I was immediately intrigued and knew I would have to get my hands on it somehow. I was lucky enough to get approved to read this via NetGalley and have since been out to buy a physical copy to keep on my shelves too. This book is excellent.

5 teenagers in detention. Only four of them leave. One of them is now dead. But who killed Simon? Bronwyn, Cooper, Addy and Nate all have their reasons to want Simon dead but who would actually act upon them? One of Us is Lying has some serious Gossip Girl / Pretty Little Liars vibes and being a fan of both shows I just knew I would love it.

This book was DELICIOUS! It doesn’t mess around at all. Within the first few pages Simon is dead and we are thrust straight away into the murder mystery that I so often think is missing from YA books. We see parts of the story from all four points of view and this definitely added to the mystery and intrigue. As I got to know each character for myself I started to make a mental check list of all the people I just knew weren’t the killer. Then I realised I had crossed them all off and had to start over again. My mind was racing to find out who the killer was because I just couldn’t work it out for myself. It wasn’t until a few pages before the reveal that I did manage to work it out and my mind was blown, so much so that I reread over some parts of the book to see if I could pick up clues.

I really liked that Bronwyn, Cooper, Addy and Nate all had their own voices within the book too and I found a way to connect to each of them. There were definitely times where they frustrated me but also a lot of times where I could relate to them so clearly (I have not killed anyone, just to be clear!). I loved that across our four main characters we had the classic character stereotypes: the clever girl, the jock, the prom queen and the bad boy. But I am so glad that this book peeled back those stereotypes and in fact there was some really excellent character development for each character in their own right.

I really enjoyed this as a quick read that kept me flipping pages until I had discovered the answer to the big question: who dunnit? I love the way McManus wrote her characters and I’ll certainly be looking out for more from her in the future.

This was a really enjoyable YA mystery.

The author does a great job at creating suspense and casting suspicions on so many characters that the reader is never entirely sure what is truth and what is going to be the overall outcome.

I did think the different POVs could have been slightly more distinctive as there were occasions in which I had to think about which character's chapter I was reading.

I really enjoyed the main romance featured in the novel and overall this was a really fun mystery.

Five students are in detention having been discovered with cell phones by a technophobe teacher.  They are a varied group. There is Cooper, upper athlete, courted by colleges, destined for a glittering career as a baseball player. Addy is the popular girl, dating the handsome jock. Nate is the black sheep, on probation for a drug offence, trying to keep himself going despite a drunken father and an absent mother. Bronwen is the smart one, top marks in classes, looking to get into a top-class university. Then there is Simon, bit of a loner always on the edge of things and also the writer of the most hated gossip blog in the school.
When one of them dies the finger points at the other four. What secrets do they hide and who would have done this and why?
I enjoyed this book although I felt it was a bit sketchy in places. At times, I began to lose interest, only to come across another piece of the puzzle that made me keep reading. I found the characters a little stereo-typed but I guess that was the point of them.
All in all an enjoyable read. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read and review this book.

Oh my GOD this was one of the best books I've read this year, I absolutely LOVED it, its got everything - Mystery, suspense and teenage angst! Definitely a title to pick up if you're suffering through a reading slump like I was.
Karen McManus writes with a knife and cinematic prose that grabs on and just wont let go. Im not a big reader of YA fiction but I was instantly drawn to the plot of the book and it definitely delivered. I loved the characters, the setting, and a satisfactory ending like this one, just cant be missed. 5 stars.

Fabulous YA book - think Breakfast Club for the snapchat generation

This book was amazing! The writing was great, the plot was always intriguing and intense. Each page had me wanting more and I loved trying to decipher who the killer was. The ending shocked me because I was definitely not expecting it, or who the killer was. I loved some characters and enjoyed others. There were none I hated, but I didn't enjoy all of them. 
I would definitely recommend this book if you are looking for something quick to read or a mystery type book

This is a fairly decent whodunnit.  There are enough red herrings to keep you guessing and enough suspense to keep you reading. It is clearly aimed at a YA market and I think it will be fairly popular within this age group. I agree with some reviewers that the characters are stereotypes but I disagree with with the negative comments about the portrayal of mental illness and the gay community.  In my view the author handles both quite sensitively .
My thanks to netgalley for this copy.

This was such a great book- full of suspicion and paranoia. Everyone is a suspect and you don't know who to trust. The relationships were developed well and the plot well paced. 
I will admit that I was a bit disappointed with the final reveal of the murderer- it was someone I'd guessed quite early in but tossed the suspicion away as it didn't even seem like a possibility- it just eliminated any surprise and betrayal from one of the characters that we loved. 
If all that makes sense without spoiling anything.
Full Book Talk coming soon.

Rating: 4/5 stars

I really liked this book! I was initially a bit wary- will this just be another Breakfast Club (but without my lord and saviour Molly Ringwold and a classic 80’s soundtrack), will this be another dumb murder mystery where you know who-dun-it the entire time? 

Well the answer folks, is both no, and no. 

I won’t lie, I was mostly in here for Bronwyn and Nate. I’ve just finished watching Riverdale and the pair give off a Betty/Jughead vibe that I feel like nobody’s business. 

Overall, this book wasn’t predictable, the characters were all really interesting, and I couldn’t pick who the murderer was. Which is really all you could want from a murder mystery novel. 

I was a bit disappointed with the ending… everything felt a bit rushed and unresolved. But overall I was a big fan of this and couldn’t wait to come home after work and devour it over a period of a couple of days.

When I began reading 'One Of Us Is Lying' I was unsure how much I would enjoy it. I love most YA but felt as though this may be aimed at young teenagers. How wrong I was! Don't get me wrong, I think there's a lot in the book to be enjoyed and learnt from for that age range, but as a 26 year old (you are never too old for YA) I absolutely loved it.

A 'who-dunnit' mystery surrounding the death of a high school student, this book kept me guessing who the culprit was right until the reveal! The multiple view points, while at first hard to keep track of, add an interesting and effective depth to the narrative, and help to make you feel a part of the book. 

The characters are very well written and I came to think of them as my friends (& enemies) and was invested in what happened to them throughout the story.  They are the kinds of people you know, not the kinds you only read about in books!

The ending was also well done and, in my opinion, very good. I feel as though more and more YA books seem to have endings that feel rushed and/or incomplete but OOUIL is not one of them. McManus provides a suspenseful,  can't put down but also realistic ending that left me wanting more while also feeling very satisfied with where it was left. 

I don't want to give too much away so I'll stop there, but I would highly recommended this book and will be eagerly awaiting McManus' next book!

With flavors of the TV series Riverdale practically seeping through the pages, One Of Us Is Lying is better than your typical teenage murder mystery. Although certain possibilities are easy to predict, you'll still be enjoying the plots and characters. Even by using typical stereotypes, McManus carves a few deeper layers into them.

One of Us Is Lying isn’t just a thriller. It’s part-high-school drama, part-romance, part-plottwists and part-mystery. It’s a mashup of a lot of things, and you’ll enjoy this book only if you enjoy each aspect together; otherwise it’s pretty much a disappointment.

The premise follows five students who enter detention, and one of them dies inside. Each remaining student is lying and hiding things, and it is necessary to find out who did the murder. That, basically is the story and to be completely honest, it’s a very interesting premise. I got so excited when I read the summary on Goodreads because I was really expecting something interesting and shocking.

However, that’s not the case. I’m going to get the positives over first. The whole mystery element, and the big reveal in the end was pretty good. I wasn’t expecting it at all, and I felt satisfied reading the ending, when things came together and everything was solved. I felt that the whole question of who committed the murder, the connecting threads and the little bits and parts which are revealed throughout the book as plot twists were really good.

The writing was addictive, and you’ll find yourself finishing this book in no time. I think with books like this (which don’t have too much going for them – I’ll get to the cons of the book in a minute) – the writing matters a lot. The writing had a huge part in me not giving up on the book, and because I could fly through this in such a short time, I did not even feel too bad about not liking the book. It is the kind of writing where you have to keep reading to know more and more, even if you don’t care too much. It was very difficult to stop reading even for a while.

And now, the things I didn’t like. The characters, for example. They’re extremely cliché, cardboard, and generic characters which we’ve seen over and over and over again in YA books of all genres. I was so pissed off by the characters because it felt like these characters have been popping up in so many books, and there is  nothing new the author has to present here. Not only are the characters cliché, they’re massively underdeveloped. The author doesn’t provide a wider, emotional insight into any character, they’re basically cardboards, not humans.

[MILD SPOILERS FROM HERE ON]

The romance was so irritating. Hah. And cliché. Generic bad boy meets generic good girl, and start sharing their woes and ‘deeper’ thoughts and turns out they’ve liked each other since childhood hurrahhhh. I completely skimmed over most of the lovey-dovey conversations they had towards the end of the book, I just couldn’t take it anymore.

The high school drama. Yep, there’s lots of it. If you are someone who enjoys reading about bratty teenagers and their gossips and shenanigans, you will love this book. I’m just tired of such stories, and I didn’t think the author wrote anything new or interesting in this book.

Another thing I disliked was how the term ‘depressed’ was used in the book. You can read the book yourself to know exactly what I mean; but all I can say is one of the characters is said to be doing certain things in high school, and all of a sudden the he’s being referred to as ‘depressed’ which I found really odd.

All in all, I would recommend this book if you like YA contemporary, teenage dramas and high school setting. You will love it then. But if you’re looking for a thrilling mystery, definitely don’t pick this one up. It’ll disappoint.