One Of Us Is Lying - Spoiler Review!

Hey Guys x

If you haven't read my original review of this book, read it HERE, before you read this one.

Also, if you haven't read this book (and also managed to miss the title), this review will be full of SPOILERS, so avoid this post if you don't want to know what happens.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get on with the review.

I won't really be talking about the things that I liked in this review, it's purely for me to vent/rant about the things that I didn't like, which I couldn't do without spoiling the main plot points.

Now, in a book called One Of Us Is Lying about a murder taking place, you'd expect one of the people to be lying about the murder.

So the fact that none of the four did it, or are even involved other than passively, was so freaking disappointing to me!

How can you set up a whole murder mystery, draw us in with the four suspects, and then make the big twist that the boy who was killed actually committed suicide? Even having to write that just disappoints me all over again because I had such high hopes for the end of the story. And I completely get that this was a red herring, and quite original, and making it one of the four might have been harder because the reader might have guessed it, but I don't think it would have been a bad think purely due to how well the characters and the story were written. I don't think it could have been predictable.

I think that it would have been so amazing for one of the four characters to reveal to the audience that, actually, they were the one to put peanut oil in Simon's cup. It would have been creepy, terrifying, and a real lesson in how to write a great unreliable narrator. And the thing is, apart from Nate (whose 'motive' wasn't a big deal because everyone already suspected him of selling drugs, so it would have just been further speculation and wouldn't have gotten him in trouble), they all had a really good reason for doing it, so it would have made perfect sense while also throwing the reader for a loop. However, I saw a comment below a YouTube video that said it would have been cool for Bronwyn's sister Maeve to have done it, and that's something that I agree with, because it made complete sense, but I also never would have suspected her.

And then what's even worse was to make Jake the scapegoat of everything. I think it was really unrealistic for him to conspire to send Addy to jail for a crime that she didn't commit (A murder, no less) because she cheated on him. Not that cheating should be taken lightly, but it was the most dramatic reason to conspire with a guy who you weren't even that close with. Because yes, Jake and Simon knew each other years ago, but they weren't that good friends anymore, and definitely not good enough for Jake to risk his life to pull off this stupid (albeit brilliant) plan.

I also think it was a bit unrealistic that Simon would have set this up in the first place. If we're going to have a story where the name that we hear the most often is the dead guy, he deserves to have a bit more character than 'he was depressed, people didn't like him because he was a dick, so he kills himself while hoping to set up some people for his murder'.
I don't know about you, but when I picture the guy who held all of the school's secrets in the palm of his hand, he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy to leave anything to chance - particularly about his own murder. It would actually have made more sense if he somehow faked his death, because I refuse to believe that he just completely put all his trust in Jake about his final act of revenge on these four people.
Plus, his reason for doing it to these four in the first place was a bit shitty, wasn't it? Just jealousy three times over, and Addy cheating on Jake. It really made a character that could have potentially been terrifying just pathetic.

And with that, I think I've ranted enough!

But yeah, because of all of this, the book only gets a 3.5 star rating from me. What did you think of it?

Lou