Title – One of Us is Lying
Author – Karen M. McManus
How I Got It – From the publisher
Pages – 368 pages
Publication Date – June 1st 2017 by Penguin
ISBN – 9780141375632
RRP – $21.00 NZD
My Rating – ★★★★/5
“Five students walk into detention. Only four walk out alive.
Yale hopeful Bronwyn has never publicly broken a rule.
Sports star Cooper only knows what he’s doing on the baseball diamond. Bad boy Nate is only one misstep away from a life of crime.
Prom queen Addy is holding together the cracks in her perfect life.
And outsider Simon, creator of the notorious gossip app at Bayview High, won’t talk about any of them ever again.
He dies 24 hours before he could post their deepest secrets online. Investigators conclude it’s not accident.
All of them are suspects.”
I received a copy of One of Us is Lying from Penguin Random House New Zealand to 
review.
I was completely hooked from the beginning of this book. I thought Simon was a little weird in detention and the crash seemed too convenient for me. So after Simon died I was desperate to know what actually happened.
I did figure out Cooper’s secret very early in the book. I can’t remember how but I wasn’t that far in when it clicked. So I was confused by his secret on Simon’s app. I did not like the idea of this app Simon created and the reasons he started it. I mean, I used to watch Gossip Girl and this is a lot like that gossip app. I didn’t like the person behind the Gossip Girl site either. Even before it was revealed. But enough of that.
One of Us is Lying did remind me a lot of Gossip Girl with the app and the “blasts” from Tumblr. And it also reminded me of Pretty Little Liars too, with this unknown person holding things over the four that were in detention with Simon and determined to see them in prison. Sounds kind of like A and A.D. to me. I have seen some people saying this is like The Breakfast Club too but I don’t see it myself. Yes, they were all in detention at the start of the book but that’s the only thing they have in common. For me anyway.
I found One of Us is Lying really addictive. At the start of the book I wanted to figure out what happened to Simon and who was posting things on Tumblr (I’m pretty sure that’s the site they were using) and I had a few suspects. There were a couple of characters that just stood out to me but I’m not going to say who they were because I did get them right. Just not the reasons… Which was so crazy!
I liked all of the four characters that were in detention with Simon, Bronwyn, Nate, Addy and Cooper. None of them were really close before all this, they all knew of each other, but the more the police suspected them and questioned them the closer they all got. There was this one scene after Cooper’s secret comes out, and he’s dreading lunch but Nate was the best. He actually made me laugh out loud.
Anyway, if you’re a fan of Pretty Little Liars or Gossip Girl then I definitely recommend this for you. I couldn’t put this book down. But if you’re not a fan of those shows and like how this book sounds then check it out.
*Thank you Penguin Random House New Zealand for sending me a copy to review*
– Aimee.
My Life in Books 