Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - One of Us Is Back

Coming off of You'll Be the Death of Me my expectations were really low for One of Us is Back. However, due to loyalty to the One of us series I vowed to read its finally installment and was... Actually pretty surprised to enjoy it a lot! Blasted through it in two days and can say that it was a good book.

It contains pretty much all of McManus's usual tropes that you're likely to recognize if you've read her books before, but this one felt less tied down to the teen drama cheesiness because many of the characters are now halfway through college or about to graduate high school. I found that made the characters seem to have a lot more depth in this installment, and I think that McManus's writing could benefit from writing some more of these older perspective characters. It was very cool to see what characters were chosen to be the perspective characters since the cast has grown so much since the first book, and I was really glad to see more of Addie since she was one of my favorites in the first two books.

Overall, One of Us is Back isn't the most thrilling of mystery novels, as it serves more as an extended epilogue to the stories of the characters in One of Us is Lying and One of Us is Next. It takes on a much slower pace, once in a while remembering that there's a mystery going on between moments that work towards wrapping up the crew's plotlines. Despite that, I still enjoyed the book, and would recommend the series as a whole. The One of Us is Lying series is a guilty pleasure for me. I've been following it for around seven years now and, despite its flaws, was a reading experience I'll always hold dear.

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sofias_reading_obsession's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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adrianaslibrary's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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saretta02's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.5

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kccool12255's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Now, let's be honest.

Did One of Us Is Lying NEED a sequel? No.
Were all of the characters and their archs perfectly summed up, even in the first book? Yes.
But am I going to buy every new book and devour it every single time? Yes.

This is by no means the best book I've ever read, but for what it is, this is absolutely AMAZING. Karen M. McManus KNOWS what she's doing, and she EXCELS at her craft every single time. Though One of Us Is Lying didn't need a follow-up, she smashed it out of the park with One of Us is Next, and you just HAD to have a follow-up to the cliffhanger ending. I love every single one of these characters, and I love reading in their POVs and seeing how they react to situations, as well as make (very understandable) mistakes. It was great getting to read Addy's and Nate's POVs again, since I did miss them from the first book, and even Phoebe's POV was much better than last book. She's had a lot of development, and I love seeing her (and her relationship with Knox) on the page. (Though I still am complaining how we didn't get a kiss scene, but I do understand and respect that they're taking things slow. It would've been GREAT to see, though. I don't think we had ANY kiss scenes in this book.) However, I do question the logic of THESE three characters being chosen for POVs in this book. Since we have like NINE main characters now, I was under the impression that Karen M. McManus was going to do split-POVs with ALL of them, and while that could've been very messy, I still would've liked to see it attempted. Bronwyn and Cooper got shoved into the background a LOT as a result, and it's sad that we don't get to see as much of them as usual. What I also would've liked to see is maybe some POVs from the characters we HAVEN'T seen yet. Namely, Luis, Kris, maybe even Vanessa, this random girl who gains importance this book, and maybe Keely, since she's also kind of important to the story (I get she's on vacation, but maybe if she was a main character, she could've been given more of a role in the mystery-solving aspect.) Luis and Kris are CONTINUALLY shoved into the background of this book, and bringing their POVs in could've made them more central characters. One of Us Is Lying had Bronwyn, Cooper, Addy, and Nate, and then the second book switched it up by bringing in Maeve, Bronwyn's sister, Knox, and Phoebe, and I would've loved to see new main characters for this book as well. But I don't hate the final product, and I think these POVs gave a lot of insight and a lot more depth to the story overall. I LOVE seeing Nate's development as well as Phoebe's, and as always, I love seeing how much of a girlboss Addy is becoming.

Speaking of Addy, I do have a slight critique.

Was her budding romance with Keely REALLY necessary? I mean, I know she's finally gaining independence after ending her relationship with Jake, but I would've really just preferred to see her remain single. I also don't think it's necessary to make her gay, but that's a story for another time. Bottom line is, I don't HATE the pairing, but I would've loved to just see Addy stay single and continue to figure out her place in the world.

What I do LOVE, though, is getting to see Jake and SIMON'S POVs. That was a VERY welcome surprise, and it added a lot to the story. Everything came together in the end, which is always nice to see.

And because I don't know where else to put this, while some character relationships were really well-developed and fleshed out, others felt completely abandoned. Like what the heck happened to Maeve and Knox being best friends? I get they both have romantic interests now, but I don't think we saw them interacting with each other in a scene ONCE this book. It was very disappointing.

But in retrospect, the ending also feels very lackluster. I know Karen M. McManus definitely didn't PLAN for these books initially becoming a series, but I wish the "villains" were more tied together and cohesive. Jake DID come back in this book, but he wasn't the main villain, and it was just honestly a little disappointing, though the plot twists were definitely well-implemented. And talking about books being well-tied together, we didn't even get a really good GAME in this book. In the first book, you had all the gossip thingies, in the second book, we had dangerous truth or dare, but in this book, we don't really get much of ANYTHING

other than the "practice makes perfect", which doesn't even turn out to be that important, if I remember correctlly

. And the ending is REALLY nice, but I wish it had involved good things for ALL of the characters, not just Addy. Kinda like in the epilogue of the first book, where EVERYBODY comes together for the ending. I just wish that wasn't the ending for the entire series, was just Addy reflecting and looking forward to the future.

But all that being said, I absolutely LOVE this book. While it could've done more, I LOVE reading about these characters and this world, and I wouldn't change that for anything.

It's been a fun journey, One of Us Is Lying. I'm gonna miss you.

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luananki's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

this was a perfect ending for the bayview crew, i’m very happy i finally got to read it
although some of the characters felt a little off, i had so much fun with the mystery and the characters’ development and i’m going to miss their little group

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sabrinaleaf's review against another edition

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Another edition of useless sequels with non existent plots that could have been summed up in less then 100 pages.

Plot was all over the place. I think I outgrew this author.

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beckyyreadss's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I wanted to read this book as I really enjoyed this series so far and was intrigued at which member was going to be back. This book was confusing at times, but I'm glad that it got the ending the guys deserved.

This book follows the gang from the last two books who are still in Bayview. Some of these characters are Addy, Nate, Phoebe, Maeve and Cooper. Ever since Simon died in detention, life hasn’t been easy for the Bayview Crew. First the Bayview Four had to prove they weren’t killers. Then a new generation had to outwit a vengeful copycat. Now, it’s happening all over again. At first the mysterious billboard seems like a bad joke: Time for a new game, Bayview. But when a member of the crew disappears, it’s clear this “game” just got serious, and no one knows the rules. Everyone is a target and now that someone unexpected has returned to Bayview, things are getting deadly again. The thing is, Simon was right about secrets – they all will come out, eventually. And Bayview has a lot it’s still hiding.

I love being back in Bayview and seeing how the crew was doing even if there was more stress for them during this book. I love that all my favourite couples are still strong and there was no petty breakups over the situation at hand. My favourite part in any mystery book is when the pieces of the puzzle starts to make sense and the killer is revealed. The chapter where the killer and the motive are revealed is written brilliant and the suspense is nail biting especially because Karen manages to drag it on from several points of view that you are waiting just for the answer and what had just happened. I love the friendships that are in this book and that they all stayed closed. My favourite character will always be Nate, I just wanted to hug him to death during this series as he has not had it easy.

The thing that stopped it from being five stars was Jake. That boy was such a pain in the ass, and I just wanted to punch him in the face. I was also a tad confused when I started this book because I read the second book in 2021 and I couldn’t remember what happened in the second book and some of the side plots from the characters weren’t in my brain, so I was just playing catch up. I would have loved a recap at the beginning of the book.

I would have liked an epilogue with all the crew being happy and successful and how Bayview was doing. Maybe that will be a book in the future, but I want Nate and Bronwyn to be parents, Maeve and Luis traveling, Cooper and Kris being happy and parents. Addy and Keely being happy and just everyone getting the hell out of Bayview.

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