Title: One Of Us Is Lying
Author: Karen M. McManus
Genre: YA, Mystery
Summary: A group of nonfriends straight out of The Breakfast Club is in a detention room as the outcast of the group mysteriously dies. Cue "whodunit" plot.
Rating: 3 trope-y eye-rolls out of 10
Review: I'll admit that what drew me to this book was the fact that it is strangely similar to a book of mine and I was excited to read another author's take on an idea that we've both had. Now, I wish I could take back the decision. Starting off, One Of Us doesn't seem too bad. Sure, the characters are cliches but considering that this is sort-of based on The Breakfast Club, that's not a bad thing. My problems mainly come from the last act of the book.
First, we have a character whose sexuality is used as a plot twist which doesn't particularly bother me in comparison to what happens after. This character is then outed by the police and there are no consequences for that. Another thing that truly upset me is the "depressed people are violent" trope. Say it with me folks: depressed people are more of a threat to themselves than they are to other people. A character with depression decides to help frame other people for murder and another depressed character considers shooting up his high school. Yes, this author thought telling teen readers (many of whom suffer from depression) that they're like the terrorists who kill innocent kids.
The one major person of color in the story is a smart, capable Latina (awesome!) who then falls in love with a drug dealer (racist cliches are the new plain cliches). This wouldn't be too much of an issue if all the guy dealt was marijuana, but he also deals painkillers which can harm people and that truly upsets me. We've got this cool girl with a basic white boy who puts people in harm's way for money and we're supposed to cheer for them? Really? In front of my salad? The gay jock is as one dimensional as this sentence I'm typing. In fact, the only character who seems to have a decent character arc is the straight white girl (hmm... I wonder why she's the only tolerable character in the book... qwhite interesting) who then gets her arc of becoming a badass feminist ruined by needing her ass saved by a boy during the climax of the book.
And finally, the thing that annoyed me the most about the book (spoiler and trigger warning):
There is no killer. The depressed, would-be mass murderer mentioned earlier decides to kill himself and frame a group of kids because he's upset with them. Not only is suicide brushed over in this book, but this is a MYSTERY. Not just any mystery, but a DEATH MYSTERY. You do not write a mystery book and set up all these clues just to have zero payoff with a "gotcha, there is no killer." That's just lazy writing. I feel that the author had a great premise and cool setup (I'm down for anything related to The Breakfast Club) but along the way she got distracted with shoving in as many cliches as possible and telling a story about teens and growing up that she completely neglected the mystery aspect of the plot. We already have a Breakfast Club. If your book claims to take a different spin on a classic story, follow through on whatever that interesting spin is otherwise you're just rehashing what has already been done before.
And for the love of Taylor Swift, don't make light of life-threatening situations that your readers may have found themselves in before. It's 2017. I thought that was publicly known by now.
All in all, One Of Us Is Lying isn't Throne of Trash, Fifty Shades of Shit level horrible, but it completely fails to live up to expectations. If you don't read this, you're not missing the next big thing in YA. Save time and effort. Just rewatch The Breakfast Club.
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