One of us is Lying by Karen M McManus
One of us is Lying is one of those books you could read cover to cover in an afternoon. I tried as hard as I could not to do that because it was so good I didn’t want it to be over. I would describe it as Gossip Girl meets Agatha Christie.
It’s not a high-brow ‘who done it’ novel but it does grab your attention and the four main characters are extremely defined and are the type of people you would expect to find at any school.
Simon, is the school nerd who strives to be a part of the ‘it’ gang by having a gossip website listing everyone’s darkest secrets. Sadly Simon never gets his wish as during after school detention he has a severe allergic reaction to some peanuts and dies.
The only four people in the room at the time – Bronwyn, Nate, Cooper and Addy are the main suspects but none of them confess to the murder. Their part in Simon’s murder is heightened more when the police find there are unpublished posts on Simon’s computer about all four of them.
Bronwyn is a usually a straight A student and comes from a middle class family who have set their sights on her going to Yale or Harvard. However she has cheated on a test which Simon somehow knows about.
Nate is the school bad boy – he sells drugs, his dad’s a raging alcoholic and his mum is AWOL. He’s the prime suspect and strikes up an unlikely romance with Bronwyn as they are thrown into this awful situation.
Cooper is your ultimate jock and his dad is pushing him to get a scholarship to a top university for his baseball. However Cooper has a secret which Simon knew all about – he’s gay. Once he does come out his dad can barely look at him and his school friends turn against him. However when the media gets hold of the murder story, Cooper is immediately backed by gay activist and his friends soon change their mind about him.
Addy is the school’s princess and beauty queen. She has had a steady boyfriend, Jake, for years however his controlling ways started to take their toll and she slept with his best friend, which Simon knows.
All four have a reason for wanting him dead but it’s an unlikely culprit who really did it.
