A review by conspystery
One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This book was extremely popular when I started high school-- I tried to read it a number of times, but I just couldn’t get into it and would always abandon it before finishing the first chapter. Recently, I came across the audiobook ready to borrow at my library, so I thought I’d give it one last try before I gave up on it. I’m glad I did, but even still, One of Us is Lying wasn’t as exceptional as I’d expected from all the hype.

I thought the plot was decently interesting, but I struggled to suspend my disbelief throughout the book. The actual premise of the murder mystery feels, to me, almost cartoonish. Peanut oil? Really? It just feels a little off, like the book wasn’t totally committed to the dark themes it later explores. Another place I found this was in Cooper’s character, unfortunately. I really liked him and his plotline, and I thought it was reasonably well done (if a little bit predictable)-- my issue was minor, but it was still there. In particular, I felt a little bit weird about
the subtext behind the emphasis on his Southern accent. To me, it felt like the Southern accent was being used as a subconscious red herring for his character arc, since a lot of the time the American South is associated with conservatism and, thus, homophobia. I think he comments on it after everything is revealed, how difficult it is to be gay in a Southern family. This is an interesting thing to explore, but I don’t know how I feel about the subtextual equation of Southernness and homophobia, even if it’s only used as a “gotcha” moment later on. If that wasn’t what his accent was included for… then why would it have been emphasized at all? It felt a little bit insincere and cheap to me, no matter how well the audiobook narrator sold it-- more on that later.
This was a recurring theme in the novel: tonal dissonance, between the plot and its themes or its characters and its details or anything at all, really. And not usually in a good or intentional way. 

Further on that point, there was a massive disparity between the stakes involved for each character. Bronwyn’s entire situation isn’t even remotely comparable to Cooper’s, or Addy’s to Nate’s-- I think probably this was to make some point about how our struggles are deeply subjective and influenced by our perceptions of life, and I do think Bronwyn, as the de facto protagonist, explores that at least a little bit in her character development. Even so, it was a bit jarring, and sometimes almost felt preachy, or too clean cut. The wide breadth of subject matter McManus takes on is serious in all of its facets, but to me most of its presentation feels filed down, made more easily consumable in this narrative. I understand this is YA, so some level of narrowing and predictability is to be expected, but I just wish there was more of a commitment to really going in depth here. All of that makes the ultimate resolution of the mystery somewhat contrived, anticlimactic, and even a little bit hokey, which takes away from the serious message it’s trying to convey.

This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy One of Us is Lying. I did. I thought the audiobook performance was genuinely phenomenal; I was about to write “especially Nate’s and Bronwyn’s sections” since Robbie Daymond and Kim Mai Guest were a huge reason I picked up the audiobook at all, but then I thought to add Cooper’s as standout, and also Addy’s, and then I found myself looking up the whole cast. So, an absolute round of applause to Robbie Daymond as Nate, Kim Mai Guest as Bronwyn, MacLeod Andrews as Cooper, and Sharon McManus as Addy-- they were awesome. No matter how contrived or simplified I felt the message of the book was, it was still a lot of fun. For a YA book, this does what it needs to do, and pretty well. It’s accessible to teens and relevant to them, probably, and I like the genuine care the narrative and author seem to have for their audience. My criticisms probably hail from the fact that I think I’ve somewhat aged out of YA, so I’m not the target audience for a book like this. If I’d read it five years ago as a freshman in high school, I think it would have been perfect for me, and maybe that’s all I can expect from it. 

My thoughts on the sequel are another story. But One of Us is Lying was overall a solid YA thriller, no matter how picky I am about it. 
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