I picked another young adult novel to follow up Fangirl, but this was a solid choice, I promise you. While I moved back a little age-wise, One of Us is Lying follows a rag-tag group of high-schoolers navigating through a thought-provoking thriller.
It all starts with detention. Five seemingly random students find themselves in detention because of phones found in their backpacks that they all claim aren’t theirs. Not even ten minutes into their punishment, one student, Simon, dies from drinking peanut laced water. Freaky right? Only now, the remaining four students, Bronwyn, the scholar, Nate the bad boy/drug dealer, Cooper the all-star athlete, and Addy, the popular one, have become the central suspects.
Suspicions around the four intensify when a posthumous entry on Simon’s gossip app, About That, reveals the four all had pretty major secrets they wanted to keep hidden. All of their secrets are pretty life-altering, some a little more than others. It makes it pretty hard not to point the fingers at any one of them at any given time throughout the novel.
Bronwyn takes charge and leads the other three, along with the help of her sister, into trying to figure out who did this to Simon, because a bunch of strange little things start standing out and adding up. When the group starts making some headway, they get a little spooked and definitely reprimanded by whoever is behind it all. They just need enough proof! The turns that this novel takes from the perspectives of all of the accused is quite entertaining and really fun to try and figure out!
Almost as soon as I started reading this book, it reminded me of two things: Scream the television series, and The Breakfast Club. It’s a strange group of students trying to solve a potential murder! I thought that was an ingenious mix of things and it made it really enjoyable for me (because I love Scream and The Breakfast Club)! This book was really well done and I very much recommend you give it your time.