Top 4 Reasons To Read "One Of Us Is Lying"
Last night I finished the fantastic book by Karen McManus entitled: "One Of Us is Lying." This book had amazing characters, twist and turns, and a fantastic story from beginning to end. Instead of doing a review of One Of Us Is Lying, I decided to do a post about the top 4 reasons I think everyone should read One of Us is Lying. Warning there may be a few spoilers in this article so
I hope everyone enjoys this post and please feel free to leave a comment.
4. The Mystery
Okay I have to admit the mystery/thriller part of this book was not the best. I did partially guess the killer by the end, but I also did not. For me it did not feel that overwhelming. So why am I putting the mystery in a list of reasons why you should read this book? I feel that though the mystery fell somewhat flat, I did enjoy the mystery aspect of the book. I liked the thought of a "Breakfast Club" like group and situation turning into a murder mystery. It did keep me guessing throughout the book and while I was not entirely shocked by the ending, I did still like the mystery plot of the story and did think it offered a few twist and turns to the novel, even if they were not as big as I was hoping. I think if you are at least somewhat interested in a YA contemporary murder mystery take, you will at least like the McManus's take on it.
3. The Characters
I can not remember the last time I read a book and felt so attached to every main character in the story. Throughout the story I felt for all of these characters. When Cooper has to come out to his father due to the secret of his sexuality being discovered by the police my heart sank and I was holding my breathe, so worried about how his family would react. When Addy had to deal with her controlling ex-boyfriend and mother I wanted to cry wishing someone would help her get away from the toxicity of those relationships. Everything involving Nate's family life. The feeling of sorrow for Bronwyn and her family when her scandal leaked and threatened her reputation, her future, and her family's reputation. These characters are so precious to me and I adore them so much.
2. Character Development
I could have put this with the character section, but I wanted to talk about this separately. The character development we see from these cast is amazing. We get to not only see friendships and relationships develop in the group, but individually we see so much development in one novel. We discover so much about Addy, Bronwyn, Nate, Cooper, (and even Simon). Addy we see go from one of the most popular girls in school and someone who does what everyone else tells or expects of her to being someone who does things for herself and for her wellbeing. Bronwyn goes from someone who is an overachieving student with a secret, to someone who comes clean about her mistakes and owns up to them. By the end of the book Cooper is true to himself and who he is, has a good relationship with his father, and so much more. The development of these characters is one of the best things about this book....however, it is not my favorite and top reason for why you should read this book....
1. Bronwyn and Nate: Aka Your New Book OTP
I honestly can not remember the last time I shipped a couple in a book as much as I ship these two. I think Hazel and Augustus are still probably my favorite book ship, but Bronwyn and Nate are definitely in my top 5 book ships. These two were my favorite thing about this entire story and had me literally squealing. The amount of cute-ness that we see from these characters is off the charts. From Bronwyn playing the piano for Nate to them watching Netflix together and even just the little subtle stares, touches, and thoughts between them. Every scene between the two was utter perfection and I can't express enough how much I want a sequel so that we can see more of their romance. While I do not want to spoil the ending something that caused me to only give this book 4 stars instead of something like 4.5 had to do a lot with the ending of these two characters. It was not what I was hoping for, but it was also not the worst ending ever for a ship. It just felt wrong because every other character seemed to have a satisfying ending, except the Bronwyn and Nate love story did not have the kind of ending I wanted. Don't get me wrong, I still love and appreciate the romance and magic we got to see between them and would recommend that you read this and ship them even if they both died in a fiery explosion at the end of the book (slight spoiler alert that does not happen). However, I do need to warn readers that the last scenes we see of this couple are not exactly what every shipper wants, I mean it does leave a door open for what I wanted and it is in no way worse than other possibilities that could have occurred, but I still want everyone to be prepared that this couple's story does not exactly have a HEA, though it also does not a miserably ever after or anything of that nature. Overall though, this couple is beautiful, sweet, and a couple I think every reader will fall in love with.
