The Breakfast Club with a murder. What’s not to like? 4/5.
Thank you to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for providing me with an e-copy of this book. One Of Us Is Lying is published tomorrow, June 1st.
The blurb: Five students go to detention. Only four leave alive.
On Thursday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention. Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule. Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess. Nate, the bad boy, is already on probation for dealing. Cooper, the jock, is the all-star baseball pitcher. And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High’s notorious gossip app. Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon’s dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn’t an accident.
On Thursday, he died. But on Friday, he’d planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they just the perfect patsies for a killer who’s still on the loose? Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.
My take:
I can imagine the pitch for this book: “The Breakfast Club set in 2016, but the nerd dies and the other 4 are suspects”. As high-concept pitches go, that’s a cracker.
The execution isn’t quite as brilliant as the idea, but it’s very entertaining. The 4 main characters are all believable, rounded teenagers. They leap off the page and are a laudably diverse group with depth and a mix of motivations. I have to admit that, because of The Breakfast Club thing, I could only picture them as 1985 Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy and Molly Ringwald… even though it’s clear that the characters in this book look nothing like them! Anyway, it did nothing to dent my enjoyment of the story.
I’m a fan of multiple-viewpoint stories and, as the four main characters tell their part of the story, the switching between voices is handled extremely well and helps to keep us in the dark. The POV switching also helped to make the growing friendship between the four entirely believable, as we see how their priorities and outlooks shift with Simon’s death and the events of the aftermath.
I did have a few niggles, although I doubt the biggest thing that irritated me would even be noticed by the core target audience for this book. More than once I huffed and rolled my eyes at the unbelieveable level of incompetence demonstrated by the police. Their entire investigative approach seemed to boil down to assuming one of the four main characters is guilty (even though everyone in the school seemed to hate the murder victim and would have had opportunity too) and then putting pressure on them to confess or rat on each other. And this when the suspects are all technically children.
Of course, as in many books, police incompetence is essential if our heroes are to play a crucial role in uncovering the truth, but I still find it annoying.
The final reveal contains one element which is a little disappointing (although it is the only solution which makes any sense at all), but is balanced nicely by a far more shocking revelation which is a calalyst for a high drama climax.
Overall: a story for fans of YA looking for a dose of high-school drama, secrets and lies.
Claire Huston / Art and Soul
Art and Soul 
I got this as an ARC too! I’ve got into about 2 chapters of it and it’s quite good! Though, I’m not much of a fan of the writing style? Maybe I haven’t had a chance to get used to it – fabulous review!
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Thank you!
I was a bit wary going in but it slowly won be over! I I hope you enjoy it once you get used to the style and it isn’t annoying.
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Great review of a very enjoyable book. Totally agree with everything and I was also picturing the characters from the film as I was reading 😀
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Thank you!
I couldn’t help it! Even though the author described the characters well and they were clearly very different to those in the film, I couldn’t get the actors out of my mind 🙂
That said, it did nothing to dent my enjoyment of this one.
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The police are always pictured badly!
x K
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I know! I start to wonder if it’s just because if they did their job brilliantly the story would get wrapped up in a few hours 🙂 I also wonder if anyone in the police who reads these things finds it really annoying!
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HA!!! I know my parents find it annoying and they worked with the police a lot! And yes the story would probably be very short!
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Great review! Good to hear you enjoyed this one as well. 🙂
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Thank you!
I’ve just read your review and I’m so glad you enjoyed it as well 🙂
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I’ve just started this, glad you enjoyed it. Good impression so far 🙂
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I was a bit worried going in, as I love The Breakfast Club. But I thought the updated elements were excellent (social media must make negotiating high school even more difficult – I’m glad I missed that one!).
I hope you continue to enjoy it! 🙂
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Sounds very tempting!
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It’s an easy read and surprisingly absorbing. As long as you come to care about the characters it’s an enjoyable story with plenty of surprises to keep you guessing 🙂
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I have to say thank you! I read a review of this last week, at the end of it I commented “so it’s a modern day Breakfast Club with murder” to which I received the response “I don’t know I’ve never seen it! 😲
Evidently they hit the target market there as most YA readers won’t have seen Breakfast Club I’m guessing unless they are into retro films or their Mum has made them! 😂
Great review and thank you for confirming my suspicion ref BC!
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Thank you and you’re welcome!
I did depress myself slightly by thinking, “Wow, the target market for this book probably won’t even have seen or heard of The Breakfast Club!” – which is, of course, their loss!!
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I was super excited to see you were reviewing this book! I want to read it. I’m happy to see you were entertained by it. I am all about the drama and lies, so I think it will be for me. 🙂 Your review was great!
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Thank you!
I think you’ll really enjoy it 🙂 The characters are very convincingly drawn. I’d hate to be a teenager nowadays with social media making everything a nightmare!
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Brilliant review Claire! I’ve missed these. Hope you’re doing well, my dear 🙂
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Thank you!
I’ll hopefully be getting more of a chance to blog/follow other blogs soon 🙂
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Welcome back Claire! I liked the movie the Breakfast Club so I definitely want to check this one out.
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Thank you!
It’s such a good idea. It took me a little while to get into it, but once you care about the characters it’s an entertaining story 🙂
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LOL. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced not caring about characters, but I will definitely let you know what I think.
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The more reviews I see for this one the more I want to read it. I love The Breakfast Club! What an awesome movie… so the book should fit me just perfect! Great review! Defo good to hear about your niggles and to keep those in mind when reading! 😉
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Thank you!
It’s such a great idea. I can imagine the author watching the movie and thinking, “Hey, these guys really don’t get on a lot of the time. I wonder what would have happened if someone had got killed?”
It’s very entertaining!
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I hate it when an author writes the police as being consistently incompetent. It makes it harder for me to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story. But what a great premise!
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The premise is terrific and, overall, the author pulls it off. I found exactly the same thing with the police incompetence. I just couldn’t believe they’d be taking such a hard-line with teenagers!
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