One Of Us Is Lying: My Review (PART I)

One series. Three books. and one hell of an adventure!

It’s been a while since I read the series, but I still remember the feelings I had on each page of the books, for how memorable this saga has been to me. A heartfelt thanks to author Karen M. McManus for giving such a thrilling mystery with characters that have become so dear to my heart.

Before I continue, return if you don’t want [SPOILERS!!] for the GOAT of a series this is.

The first book, One of Us Is Lying, and strictly the book (apparently had been adapted into a show…but following Netflix adapting tradition, they fucked it up.) is the most enjoyable and thrilling of books with an ending twist so good, it left me staring into the void for a good while while reading the book, lol. If I were to leave any complaint, perhaps it's the name? cause I started reading the name and description, and thought: someone among the four would be responsible, right?

And when the book presented first-person narration of all the accused characters, I kept thinking: maybe one of them is lying…? And maybe we, as the reader, need to filter them out? Which would be exciting as of itself, but halfway through the book, I distinctly remember praying to God to save all my precious Bayview four! And God, (in this case author herself!) answered my prayers with the twist I least expected.

Simon Kelleher has thus become one of my favourite villains in all of fiction fr, bro orchestrated the biggest mystery and almost ruined 4 lives, all of it after dying in freaking chapter one! Nah, this twist was…. even more rewarding for me cause except for saving the Bayview four from the crime’s guilt, it did what I wanted for so long, a character so cunning that his own death doesn’t stop the plans. The last I saw was Light Yagami, even though he didn’t die, but midway lost all his memories.

Let’s talk about the continuos POV Shifting between the protagonists, and how that itself mystifies the air more, with the reader left on a cliffhanger on every page. It’s probably a better model for telling mystery stories than one single POV that we often find in other books. The other part I liked the most was the diversity of character problems- an all-arounder student with a colored background, a dashingly handsome guy with a downtrodden, poverty-inflicted criminal life, a jockey with the best prospects coming out of the closet risking to lose it all, and a school princess who wants to overcome many internal guilts and become something more. How they started as separate trails, almost parallel to each other, and slowly but surely, overcoming their own shortcomings, biases, and the hurdles imposed by their families and peers from society, which suspect them, and coming together to unite as the Bayview murder club!

The other antagonist, Jake Riordan, was a good addition too. A sociopath who, well, I understand cheating isn’t right, and he was betrayed, but seriously acting all calm and normal while playing such a devious game just to ruin a life? Maybe what took me out after the reveal was his earlier breakout at Addy’s confession, like bro knew and yet? That’s some A-grade acting right there.

The other two books, i.e, the sequels, are amazing journeys in themselves as well…and that will be a serious disservice to these masterpieces to not have their own reviews, so let me continue my review of this GOATed series in PART-II.