One Of US Is Lying by Karen M. McManus got published in 2017 already. Anyway, I’ve tried reading it at that time and it didn’t work out for me at all. I just didn’t like it and skim read it in the end. However, the book didn’t let me go, I still had it and still felt like I needed to read it. Well, I did. Did it work out for me this time around?

• Title: One Of Us Is Lying
• Author: Karen M. McManus
• Series: One Of Us Is Lying #1
• Publish date: May 30, 2017
• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• ISBN: 9781524714680
• Number of pages: 360
• Genre: Young adult, Thriller, Mystery

On Thursday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention. 
Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule.
Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess.
Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing.
Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher.
And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High’s notorious gossip app. Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon’s dead. And according to investi­gators, his death wasn’t an accident. On Thursday, he died. But on Friday, he’d planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they just the perfect patsies for a killer who’s still on the loose? Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.

When picking this book back up, I wanted to know whether I would have the same troubles as I had when I read it for the first time back in 2017. Let me get this straight, it didn’t sound bad at all. In fact, it sounds really intriguing based on the blurb alone. I expected this story to be fast-paced and full of suspense. However, I forgot to keep in mind that I was used to adult thrilles before reading this and that I just called it the quits on Pretty Little Liars halfway into the 10th book. So, I found several similarities with those books and had a hard time getting into the story since YA mysteries apparently are something completely different from adult thrillers. Unfortunately, I faced several of these problems still, but I at least managed to finish this book this time.

When 5 students walk into their detention classrom, everything still seems fine, except for the fact they all believe they are there whilst they didn’t do anything wrong. That might change when only 4 of them leave the classroom alive: Nate, Cooper, Bronwyn and Addy. Simon unfortunately doesn’t make it out alive. The four other students are immediate suspects in the case of his dead, because they were the last ones who saw him. Are they able to navigate through this investigation and solve the mystery that could ruin their reputation once and for all?

The story is told through 4 POVS. This way, we slowly get bits and pieces of information we need to find out what happened to Simon. To be honest, I immediately had a gutt feeling how this story would evolve. However, there were some twists that mademe doubt sometimes, but I wasn’t really invested in these characters and their probable motives. They all seem so stereotypical at first, but turn out to have more depth in them. However, I still couldn’t connect to them as the rapid changes in POV made it hard for me to get to know them better. We get to know them enough for this whodonit, but I feel like I’ve outgrown this way of portraying characters.

The writing on the other hand is excellent. Younger readers really get caught up in the mystery and this book is therefore intriguing. However, it fell very flat for me. Once again, I’m more the type for adult murder mysteries and I’ve barely read any YA ones. Alternating POVs however create cliffhangers and the urge to continue reading, which is exactly what a thriller should do.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t connect to this tory at all. I just read it and wasn’t interested at all in who did what and which consequences that would have for any of the main characters. The book lacks emotion for me and this is typically a me-thing and not something bad about the book. I think everything is logic for a thriller, because this genre doesn’t need to be logic all the time. I just didn’t get invested and that is such a shame.

Did I enjoy reading One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus? Not really unfortunately. I can see why younger readers get invested in this book, but I’ve probably outgrown YA mysteries. I missed suspense and tention, something younger readers will probably experience. Moreover, this book still makes me think a lot of Pretty Little Liars and that’s not helpful in getting intrigued. I still own the next book in this series and I somehow feel like I want to read it at some point, although this book didn’t fully convince me.