One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus
Release Date: May 30, 2017
Page: 360
Rating: 💜💜💜💜
Buy it: Amazon | Book Depository

5 people walk into detention together. But only 4 people come out alive.
Each of them has a motive for murder.
But who did it?

Full synopsis here

I really loved this book. I know a lot of people called it cliche and predictable, but I had fun reading this story. Even if it was inspired very heavily by Breakfast Club, I think it was a good book.

Each of the characters has a secret that could destroy them, and for this reason they will do whatever it takes to keep their secret from getting out. When the 'secret leaker' of the school dies in detention with the four protagonists they are immediately the prime suspects. We then spend the remainder of the book seeing these characters trying to solve the murder mystery and stay out of trouble. I really enjoyed this 'Breakfast Club with a twist' and, as a big Agatha Christie fan, had a fun time trying to solve the mystery alongside the other characters. To me the plot wasn't at all predictable, although maybe I'm just a very unobservant person!

The characters were all very likeable as well. Sure, their cliche personalities were debunked in a very basic way but they were all likeable in their own ways. There wasn't a point in this book where I didn't like any of the characters (apart from maybe Simon) because they all seemed fairly real. They were rounded individuals who had personalities, motives and flaws. They felt real and, as soon as their secrets were revealed, not cliche at all. There was definitely no Mary-Sue in this book.

Of course, this book wasn't perfect. There were times in this book where I had to flick back to start of chapters to remember whose POV I was reading. This became less of a problem as I got further into the book and became more familiar with the characters, but there was literally no difference between the writing style for Bronwyn and Cooper, who are in different situations and are different genders! This problem made my reading experience a little jerky (I had to keep on stopping and starting) but it didn't take too much away from the story.

Overall, this was a fun YA murder mystery. There was some diversity (bi-racial character, gay character) which was nice to see, especially as it didn't use this fact as a selling point. I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to read a light murder story, especially if you are in the YA age group.