One of Us Is Lying
The One of Us Is Lying series, Book 1
Karen M. McManus
Delacorte Press
Fiction, YA Mystery/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Bronwyn's been college bound since elementary school, with top grades and top ambitions. Cooper is living his father's dream on the baseball diamond, with interest from colleges and the major leagues even before high school graduation. Addy, homecoming queen, is the envy of half the school as she dates the star quarterback. Nate has a criminal record for drug dealing, but it's the only way to keep the bills paid with his father drowning in a bottle all day and night. Simon runs a gossip app, About That, spreading hurtful rumors that always turn out to be true. All five wind up in Mr. Avery's room for detention on Monday for bringing their cell phones to class... and all of them know for a fact that the phones they were busted with weren't even theirs. Mr. Avery doesn't care; he's just there to make sure they serve their sentence and learn their lesson.
Then Simon drops dead in the middle of the room... and the police suspect foul play.
The four survivors had little in common before the incident. Now, they're all considered suspects. And, thanks to Simon's gossip app and a particularly damning post that was due to be posted on Tuesday, all four of them have sufficient motive. As the police dig deeper and the media catches wind of the story, each of the four suspects wonder which of the others is guilty, or if they're all being framed.
Everyone has secrets in Bayview. Who had secrets worth killing for?
REVIEW: Built on a tried and true formula of mismatched students forced to see each others as people rather than stereotypes (in the vein of The Breakfast Club) with a murder mystery and potentially unreliable narrators, One of Us Is Lying presents a solid mystery with thriller overtones.
From the start, it's clear that each of the four narrators - the viewpoint shifts in each chapter, rotating through the students - has secrets even beyond what Simon spread in his app. None of them like the rumor-monger, yet nobody can deny that, however he gets his information, it always proves out in the end. His app goes far beyond locker room gossip, revealing secrets that crush people and end futures before they begin, and even though he only identifies people by their initials, it's easy for anyone at Bayview High to figure out who is who. Bronwyn, Cooper, Addy, and Nate all have their own reasons for loathing Simon; even if they haven't been targeted directly (yet), they all know people who have been destroyed by his app, such as the girl who attempted suicide after a particularly brutal campaign of harassment. Still, none expected to be seriously considered as suspects in his death. When the police get that bit in their teeth, there's no shaking them, especially when goaded by national press coverage... not even when the investigation turns out to be at least as damaging and harmful as Simon's app, unearthing all manner of skeletons from everyone's closets. Worse, someone seems to have taken up Simon's torch to make sure the entire student body, and the world, knows about every one of those old bones as they're brought to light. Could it be the killer, or one of Simon's unknown informants avenging his death?
During the course of the investigation, each of the targeted teens finds their lives turned upside down. Friends they thought they could rely on disappear. Futures they took for granted disintegrate before their eyes. None of them know whom they can trust, and not even their own families can be relied on to support them; Nate in particular lacks any sort of home safety net, but even Bronwyn's affluent parents seem more interested in preserving their idealized image of their child (and their own reputations) than listening. They each are forced to re-examine assumptions on which they've built their worlds and the people they've surrounded themselves with. Naturally, they end up drawing closer to each other... but is one of them actually a killer, or covering for a killer? They all ultimately have something to contribute to the mystery's resolution, each of them stepping up in ways they'd never anticipated they'd be capable of before the accusations and the upending of everything they believed about themselves and their peers. It all makes for an interesting, fast-paced ride with characters whose actions and emotions always rang true.
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