Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

One of Us Is Back by Karen M. McManus

69 reviews

zombiezami's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny

4.0

I’ve been impressed with this author’s ability to weave a complex mystery while also giving satisfying character development to multiple characters in each book. With this book, I feel like the characters might have gotten unwieldy because the character development felt more uneven. Knox was a POV character in the last book, but not this one, so he wasn’t developed much at all in this one. The fact that he and Phoebe didn’t get together officially until the end didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I found myself wondering stuff like: did Cooper’s dad ever come around to Cooper being gay? What about Addie’s realization about being bi? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death of parent, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Cancer, Sexual content, Suicide, and Car accident

beegirl5's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Kidnapping

nenah_elizabeth's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing and Gun violence

andreamhi's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted 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

3.75

Even though this may be a little of a low rating I really liked this booked, I just didn’t find it that surprising (except for one element in the last pages), but apart from that what I liked the most was seeing Nate, Phoebe and Addy get over most of the baggage they’ve been carrying. I found the plot a little predictable after some things were revealed, but what had drawn me more to read the book was revisiting the characters and what they were up to rather than the plot itself, so in a way it met my expectations. Will forever love this series, was one of the first mysteries I read :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Infidelity and Grief

Minor: Cancer

its_yousuffff's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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? No

4.25

One of my favorite books so far

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence and Murder

Moderate: Kidnapping

hematthews's review against another edition

adventurous 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Pregnancy and Alcohol

kalefactory's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping

Moderate: Bullying, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, and Pregnancy

Minor: Stalking

snitcheye177's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Violence, Kidnapping, and Murder

Minor: Drug use

david_slack110507's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense fast-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

I've been looking forward to reading this book because I've really enjoyed the previous two books in the trilogy. I attribute them as being part of the reason why I got really interested in reading back in 2022. Even though I don't fully remember each book in the series due to me reading them 2 years ago, I feel like this book did a good job to make it clear what the previous two books' plots were and what you need to remember from them to know for this book's plot. 

I liked how it brought the cast of characters from the two books and had them all fully interact and within the same group as it allowed for characters that wouldn't really have interacted all that much without sharing scenes, and so this allowed for the two sets of characters from each book to have friendships with one another such as Addy and Phoebe as well as if it was brief like Phoebe and Nate. It also allowed for these characters to grow as they were given more screentime and it even allowed characters from the original One of Us is Lying book to come back and have some closure such as Keely and Vanessa, the latter of which, got surprisingly a lot of depth and screentime to develop and reform her character. 

The plot was also pretty good as it once again centred around taking revenge against someone who had wronged the perpetrator and while it was obvious that the reintroduction of Jake into the narrative would mean that he would be somewhat involved with the main plot, the way that it was done and how it was revealed was well done. I didn't really guess who could be behind the new 'game' though the explanation and the backstory effort put into who was behind it was satisfying. I liked the flashbacks to before the events of One of Us is Lying as it meant that we could see Jake and Simon's relationship as well as also getting to flesh out Simon's character as we don't actually see a whole lot of him in the first book despite him being the cause for all the events that happen in this series. 

I'm interested in reading Karen M McManus' other books as I have all of the ones that have been released and I just haven't gotten around to reading The Cousins as well as You'll Be the Death of Me despite having them for a good while. Either way, I enjoyed reading One of Us is Back and I just found it to be an easy and quite a quick read for me seeing as I've had a bit of a reading slump that has really slowed down my reading progress as well as it being a good and satisfying ending to the series/trilogy. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Cursing, Drug use, Gun violence, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Cancer, Homophobia, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Car accident, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Classism

amachonis's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Alcohol