A highly entertaining but shallow book, "One of Us is Lying" is not the worst you can do on a free afternoon, but it won't really surprise or shock you particularly.
It all goes around Simon, Simon being the 'official gossiper' in his particular high school, the teenager who gets to know all the secrets to then post them on the internet, to the chagrin, anger or enjoyment of his schoolmates.
Simon dying from an allergic reaction pretty soon in the book. To then becoming the four students that were with him in detention suspects in his death. While reading it, it reminded me, of course, of all those shows like "Pretty Little Liars", where teenagers with extraordinary romantic/sex lives get entangled in surprising mysteries and deaths.
We get prototypes here: the jock, the geek, the pretty and shallow one, the bad guy... Who McManus does a great job in developing, creating nuanced and full of life characters, people you will feel close to and care about, and worry that one of them may or may not be Simon's killer.
However, all this great character creation and development, and stale but enjoyable depiction of high school life, gets bogged down by a pretty poor mystery, and a resolution that seems fairly obvious once you are one third into the book.
The best: the characters are well fleshed out and you will care about them and their world and evolution
The worst: you can see where all of it is going pretty soon; some of the connections to real life events may not sit well with some readers (in particular if you are sensitive/close to those events)
Further reading: there is so much mystery to read out there... so, "Gone Girl" or if you are more into YA... not a mystery one, but "The Hunger Games" or "Cinder" are highly entertaining
6/10
(English)
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