Introduction
One Of Us Is Next by Karen M McManus is the second book in the One Of Us Is Lying trilogy, which was published 7th January 2020, this book follows a whole new set of teens within Bayview, some we saw in the first book others are completely new. It is again another mystery, thriller novel which took social media by storm.
Storyline/ plot
The story starts a year after the events of the first book with a new group of teens, our main three are Maeve Rojas (Bronwyn Rojas’s younger sister), Knox Myers and Phoebe Lawton. The three all go to Bayview High School as a Simon Kheller enthusiast begins to play a risky game of truth or dare with the students. As the truths become harder to face, the dares become more dangerous to complete, even risking the lives of some of the students.
The group of three put past differences aside to uncover who is behind these corrupt dares and put a stop to this game once and for all.
However, as each of their truths becomes far too hard to hide, and the game affects members of their family, things become harder to solve as they are distracted fixing relationships in their own lives. The group begin to tackle personal issues such as rebounding health issues, alcoholism and being a witness to potential attempted murder, their friendship is put to the test.
We also see appearances from members of the original Bayview four who offer their help to the best of their ability, while also tackling their own relationship problems, home lives and college work.
Towards the end of the book we see the mystery coming to a close with a bang, risking their lives and everything they have built with each other, will they make it out alive or will they all have to face the final dare?
Writing style
Karen M McManus is one of the most popular young adult mystery authors due to her intense thriller abilities and twisting storylines while still being able to keep it easy to understand and digest. She creates fast paced stories with incredible plot twists while intertwining subtle sub plots to each character which makes her books such easy reads.
This book in particular has three different perspectives, for each main character within the book, so we get to see how each character is affected by the events within the book and how they digest all of the different obstacles. It also helps the reader to understand the characters better and the relationships between them as we get an insight to how their minds work individually, as well as together as a group.
Pros/ cons
Overall I thought this was a great book, the plot was really detailed and unpredictable, especially for a young adult mystery, it still had an interesting storyline that kept my attention really well. I found the characters individually to be interesting and they each added to the story a lot including the side characters, I also found the appearances of the characters from the previous book to be really nice and they didn’t take away from the current characters and their story.
Conclusion
I rated this book a four and a half stars, for a young adult thriller/ mystery I didn’t feel like it lacked anything, I thought it was a nice sequel and it didn’t feel the same as the first book in the way a lot of books in a series often can. I liked how similarly to the first book it had subtle elements of romance but without distracting from the main mystery. I felt as though the book was paced really well and i managed to get through the book pretty quickly.