REVIEW | One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus

 

“Her manic phases were a trip, though. For my eighth birthday she took me to a department store, handed me a cart, and told me to fill it with whatever I wanted. When I was nine and into reptiles she surprised me by setting up a terrarium in the living room with a bearded dragon. We called it Stan after Stan Lee, and I still have it. Those things live forever.”

 

Themes:

• Friendship
• Thinking you know someone versus truly seeing them
• The importance of reserving judgements and always striving to empathize

 

Before starting this, I had heard it described as The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars—intriguing, right? I’m not huge into thriller books, but Halloween was approaching, and I kept hearing about this, so I started it. And I’m so glad I did! I expected One of Us is Lying to be entertaining. I didn’t expect it to be something I can see myself rereading.

Let’s start with the fact that while the characters are, at their basest level, somewhat tropy, they all have such interesting growth. By the end of the novel, I really felt McManus had demonstrated each character’s individual complexity quite well. I feel like I know these people, and I want to know them more. Addy’s story arc was particularly awesome, in my opinion. She went from a character I couldn’t stand to one I would read a whole book about. Seriously. I also loved Cooper, who is gay and outed in the process of the investigation into what happened to Simon. I can’t personally speak to the representation, but I could imagine how his story line would be relatable to an underrepresented group of people, which is so important. He’s a star baseball player, with a father who literally calls people fags. It’s in this environment that we first see Cooper, in love with a man named Kris, but dating a girl named Keely. When Cooper was forcibly outed, it was painful. It was awful. But, it did help someone like myself, who hasn’t had that particular experience, empathize with people who do go through that. I felt better able to relate to how assaulted someone in that situation would feel. So I thought that was a great element of his story! Plus, I loved him and Kris!

Speaking of couples I love in this book—Nate and Bronwyn. Now there’s no question, this was a little cliché. Nate is the drug-dealing, class-skipping bad boy with a motorcycle. Bronwyn is the braniac who dresses modestly, keeps mostly to herself in the romance department, and has only broken the rules when she thought her path to Yale was blocked. All of that being said, I adore the two of them. I think I’ve said this before, but if I like a trope, I’m totally cool with it being used over and over again. So here we are. Also, Nate’s situation demonstrates the fact that most people don’t start dealing drugs because they want to, but because they’ve been born into (or made one mistake and ended up in) a world that gives them no other option. Nate has to pay the bills his father can’t, and no one will hire him, so what is his other choice? I liked this a lot, because I feel it’s an accurate and often-overlooked concept.

Another element of this novel that I enjoyed, and wasn’t expecting, was the exploration of friendship and intentional kindness. The four students involved, though very different and not normally in the same cliques, quickly banded together and showed genuine concern for one another. They also showed uncommon (at least for high school) kindness and acceptance to Janae.

The interesting thing is that if they had done that for Simon, this tragedy might have been avoided, which brings me to my last topic of discussion. I wanted to touch on one thing that I’m sure rubbed people the wrong way, but which I also thought was a fascinating and relevant story. Simon, the person whose death the whole plot surrounds, suffers from depression. He’s also made out to be a terrorist of sorts, who peruses the dark web, posting about mass-death scenarios, and airs out people’s dirty laundry to make himself feel better about being ridiculed. What Simon said and did isn’t right, but by the end, I think it’s clear to the reader that he was in pain, and for good reason, and that’s where this started. That is an incredibly relevant and enlightening, and therefore so important, message to have in a YA novel in 2017. It seems to me that McManus did a fantastic job of commenting on this issue without taking it in the wrong direction, which could have been easy to do. As for the representation of someone dealing with depression, it’s not something to which I can personally speak, and the reader doesn’t actually get much insight into Simon’s own thoughts, as we never get his perspective. However, I thought his feeling of being unseen and desperate to escape the unhappy reality of his own life seemed authentic.

All in all, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I would even reread it! I definitely think I’d recommend it, but it does have a few things that could be triggering for a range of people. So, it’s probably one to research a bit before diving in.