“She’s a princess and
you’re a jock. And you’re a brain. And you’re a criminal. You’re all walking
teen-movie stereotypes.”
One late afternoon in Monday, five disparate high-school
students walk into detention class for having mobile phones in the classroom. All
the five believe the cell phones were planted on them and not theirs. But the
mildly techno-phobic Mr. Avery adheres to his ‘no mobile in the classroom’ rule.
The five students are respectively: Addy Prentiss, Cooper Clay, Bronwyn Rojas,
Nate Macauley, and Simon Kelleher; or as the aforementioned (opening quotes)
remark by Simon spells out, ‘princess, jock, brain, and criminal’. After
pigeonholing the four under a young adult fiction stereotype, Simon proudly
calls himself the ‘Omniscient Narrator’. Alas, Simon doesn’t have much time to
narrate things. A strange car accident in the school parking lot makes Mr.
Avery to go out. Few minutes later, Simon collapses after having a drink of
water and excruciatingly meets his death. It looks like the other four are just
in wrong place at the wrong time. But soon they become suspects in Simon’s
death, which happens to be premeditated murder. Thus begins the exciting YA
murder/mystery One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus (published May 2017) which
is advertised as ‘The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars’.
The novel's Bayview High School is situated in an affluent American
suburbia. The kind of sophisticated community, where people desperately try to
be part of cliques; where non-conformity and every simple erroneous behavior
are harshly judged upon. Ostracized from every popular and beautiful students’
inner-circle, Simon has created a notorious gossip app to provide juiciest
tidbits about everyone in school. Over the time, most of Simon’s alleged
gossips turn to be veritable facts. He doesn’t give a thought to the
consequences about his privacy-invading behavior. Few students’ adolescent life
is entirely ruined by Simon’s app and the ensuing social media witch-hunt. And,
soon after Simon’s murder, police break into his admin account and find an
unpublished post, detailing the secrets or misdeeds carried out by the four
students who ended up in detention. Nate is the odd-one-out among the four. He
lives with his alcoholic father (mother dead in an accident), and is in
probation for dealing drugs. Nevertheless, the other three also has solid reasons to
silence Simon. Brownyn is hard-headed academic achiever, aiming for the Yale.
Cooper is a locally popular baseball-pitcher, who has great chance to make into
major league teams. Addy is known for her good looks, and a member of the
school’s most popular and cool circle. How far would these four go to preserve
their secrets that may instantly oust them? Or may be they could be perfect
scapegoats caught in murderer’s master-plan.
One of Us is Lying unfolds as series of short chapters from
four teens’ perspectives, which simultaneously broaden readers’ vantage point
and briskly pushes forward the mystery. The book cover and the opening chapter
clearly put each character under a stereotype. Hence, the inherent charm of the
mystery lies in discovering emotional layers of each character that deftly
avoids stereotypes. Within each short chapter, writer Karen brings subtle
variations to her characterizations and plants few red-herrings to keep us
guessing. By the end, all the four becomes fully realized characters and
despite their misdeeds and sullen disposition, we tend to empathize with them. There
might be nothing original in the coming-of-age themes (friendship, love,
isolation, anxiety, etc) Karen is dealing with here. The whole narrative trajectory that observes and indicts the frenzied media & internet behavior
is very familiar too. Yet the writing is graceful and organic enough to hold
our attention. Karen McManus largely eschews the mawkish parts of YA novel
sensibilities. She extends the novel a tad longer, even after unveiling the
identity of Simon’s killer, to keep away from syrupy‘happily-ever-after’ ending. I
wasn’t very convinced (and disappointed) with the final reveal and the big
climactic showdown. Nevertheless, this is a wonderful page-turner to be read in a
single-sitting over a boring Sunday.
[Karen McManus’ second YA suspense/thriller novel is
scheduled to be released in Fall 2018, and One of Us is Lying is being developed
into a series]
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