One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus

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Title: One of Us Is Lying
Author: Karen M. McManus
Series: One of Us Is Lying #1
Published by: Penguin Random House Audio
Release Date: May 30, 2017
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Kim Mai Guest, MacLeod Andrews, Shannon McManus, Robbie Daymond
Length: 10 hours and 43 minutes
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Young Adult
Source: Libby, cloudLibrary
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2021 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2021 Diversity Reading Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ IndieBound ✩ iTunes ✩ Libro.FM
My rating:

Blurb:

The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars, One of Us Is Lying is the story of what happens when five strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. Everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide.

Pay close attention and you might solve this.

On Monday 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 Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, 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 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.

My Review:

4.5 stars — Dudes, I can’t handle mysteries…and yet I thoroughly enjoyed this book!  I mean, I kept taking breaks along the way, b/c I’m so fucking impatient and I just want answers….but then I’d start it up again and be sucked in!  So for something outside my wheelhouse, this was a total success.

The narrators were all solid.  I’d listened to Kim Mai Guest and Shannon McManus before, and they were delightful as always.  And both MacLeod Andrews and Robbie Daymond were on point for Cooper and Nate.  Great pacing, good emotion, just…well, solid.

I think the thing that pushed this through for me is that the 4 characters were really intriguing.  They each had their own set of things they were dealing with, and they were wildly different from one another, but I ended up feeling for all of them.  There were some mini mysteries at the beginning about what each of their gossip would be, and I almost wonder if that annoyed me the most…I hate it when the character I’m reading knows something and I don’t…I know, it’s stupid, but there you go.  Luckily we were given clues along the way, and it wasn’t long before those were laid open anyways.

As for the big mystery?  Well, honestly?  I KNEW IT!!!!  But the problem is that I wanted it confirmed, and then I would keep wondering if I was on the wrong track, but I could never let it go.  And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Normally I would expound upon the characters, or the plot, but you can’t really do that with a mystery, can you?  So I’ll just say I really enjoyed myself right to the very end, and was satisfied with the way it all played out and how certain characters grew.