These murder club meetings are becoming a regular thing. We need a new name, though.
Rating: 5/5
Trigger Warnings: depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, discussion of suicide, discussion of school shootings, homophobia
Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t read the book, this review will contain spoilers so it’s up to you if you continue…
Now that is how you write a book.
Before I get to the spoilery bits, if you’re not sure whether you should read One of Us is Lyingthink Breakfast Club meets 13 Reasons Why meets Pretty Little Liars, then pick up the book and start reading - you won’t regret it.
I wrote a couple of notes for myself about halfway through this book, just little bullet points that I could potentially address in my review; largely these concerned how the characters were a little cliché, my desire to see unhealthy relationships addressed, and the kids parents each representing the epitome of bad parenting in one form of another. Honestly, I have never been more pleased with the resolutions of a book, and the way an author has developed their characters. I’m still going to discuss the same topics but I have a very different perspective from when I first wrote those notes.
Let’s start with the stereotypes. At first I read the front cover - ‘A Geek, A Jock, A Criminal, A Princess’ - and thought what I assume I was intended to think: Breakfast Club. Then you start the book and Simon points out that each character is a movie stereotype…little bit on the nose, pointing out your own stereotypes when they’re clearly going to have more to them but okay, I think, I can go with this for now. The clever part was in writing from their point of view but not instantly attempting to show how they weren’t just walking clichés: they were results of their home environments, and had the ability to learn and grow and change. Oftentimes it was when they were talking about each other than you truly saw how they didn’t fit these labels the cover/Simon gave them.
(Alongside this, I just need to comment on the absolutely accurate depiction of teenagers as absolute dicks. Namely the friendship group that Addy and Cooper come from, but that lunch hall scene after Cooper has been outed, and Vanessa tripping Addy up to call her a slut? Accurate, damaging teenage behaviours that need to be addressed irl).
More than this though, the characters weren’t just breaking stereotypes from the beginning. They did fit in their assigned boxes at the start of the book, but by the end they had climbed out and smashed those boxes up. Yes, they were a geek, jock, criminal, and princess, but they were so much more than that by the end.
I feel from here we need to jump to their (absent, pushy, frequently small-minded) parents. The reason these kids fit these stereotypes was so obviously a result of some kind of shitty parenting, in my eyes at least. Let’s go through them shall we: Cooper’s dad had a one track mind and was holding on to opinions that belong in the past; Addy’s mother was shallow, uncaring, and refused to listen to her daughters; Nate’s parents’ faults were pretty clear, an absent, drug addicted mother and an alcoholic father; and Bronwyn’s parents were pushy and strict. It goes without saying that this is a very basic look at the parents in this book, they weren’t entirely culpable, and they were learning by the end just like kids were, they just had a habit of infuriating me with their toxic behaviours. Got to say, siblings, on the other hand, were pretty faultless throughout.
If I said everything I wanted to about One of Us is Lying, this review would be hella long so basically here’s a list of the things I want to praise Karen McManus for including: drug abuse, depression, suicide, unhealthy relationships (the discussion and resolution of), sexuality, slut shaming, sexism, race issues, suffering due to circumstance (i.e. Nate as a scapegoat), alcoholism, toxic friendships, homophobia, and whole bunch of other things. Not only were they included, but they were treated well, and that meant a lot to me.
Now onto the actual murder mystery bit. The best praise a mystery can get is probably that it was almost impossible to solve, that the clues couldn’t be pieced together right until the end, and that the climax was a surprising twist. I can’t give One of Us is Lying that praise, sadly. I wish I could, and I am not faulting it for this, but from the moment we were told Simon was depressed, I kind of thought suicide was an option. After all, it was one of this impossible mysteries: there’s five people in the room, no one came in or out, and no one saw anyone do anything suspect. When I didn’t believe Cooper, Addy, Nate, or Bronwyn did it, Simon was the only logical culprit. So yes, that part I did figure out. The rest I didn’t though, and that’s exactly the kind of mystery I love; the frustrating kind.
The only thing I’m not sure I loved is the epilogue. Bronwyn and her triumphant performance? Loved it. The murder club (and their associates) being a supportive friendship group? Loved it. Nate turning up to complete a cliché romantic ending? Eh, not so much. I like Nate and Bronwyn together, and I was mad at Nate for behaving as he did after he got arrested…but I just felt it was the kind of book where we could have avoided that little cliché. Nicely handled, though, not just smashing the characters together in a violently passionate kiss. The tentative reconciliation and clear communication is something I am here for. Even if I didn’t really want them back together by the end of the book.
One of Us is Lying addressed all the big topics that teenagers face, threw in a few atypical issues on top of that, and delivered a modern murder mystery that had me hooked. I finished this book and handed it to my sister saying “read this” because my god I loved it.
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