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“She's a princess and you're a jock,” he says. He thrusts his chin toward Bronwyn, then at Nate. “And you're a brain. And you're a criminal. You're all walking teen-movie stereotypes.”

One of Us Is Lying is completely and utterly aware that it's characters are stereotypes on the surface. It knows that it's almost a criminal homage to The Breakfast Club. It knows it and it owns it, and then tries to turn it on it's head.

So that's four characters described, but who's the fifth? That would be Simon, a self-described ‘omniscient narrator', an outlier and an outcast throughout the entire book, and the victim and catalyst for everything that takes place.
Simon dies during detention, but which of the remaining four characters did it? That question is what this book spends exploring.

Full disclosure, I am that person who figures out plot twists, which this book definitely has. I figured out the ending about halfway through. I figured out the character's journeys almost as soon as they were introduced, but I still enjoyed reading this.

I usually hate stories with multiple POVs, but I liked this one. I liked seeing the different personalities and slowly having their secrets divulged to me. I felt like I was a part of their murder club. I felt like I was on the sidelines in their stories, but I was still right there. This is a book that includes you, and it really was a treat.

This is a book that does take you on a journey, and whilst some of the characters are more fleshed out than others, they still all had interesting stories that I wanted to read more of.

content warning: sexual abuse, paedophilia, murder, violence, drug addiction

wow this was a tough tough read, and one with a somewhat open ended conclusion, but it's a story that i honestly absolutely loved.

i loved that sadie would've done absolutely anything for mattie. i loved that sadie might be out there taking down sexual predators and saving countless kids.

the format was also super interesting as well but i wasn't overly sold on it.