Center for Teaching & Learning

Five students were sent to detention, but only four made it out alive. High schoolers Bronwyn, Addy, Nate, and Cooper all become suspects for the murder of Simon Kelleher. Bronwyn is extremely smart and doesn’t like breaking rules, Addy is one of the popular girls, Cooper is an All–Star baseball pitcher, and Nate is on probation for selling drugs. Many students dislike Simon because he’s the  founder of an app called “About That,” where he posts people’s deepest secrets. The four suspects work together to try and figure out if someone is framing them—or if the killer is amongst them.

I loved how  McManus wrote this book from four different points of view. It made the story more entertaining because each character has their own problems, which the others couldn’t relate to. If it was only written from one of the characters’ point of view, then the reader wouldn’t get to explore each person’s side of the story, and the audience doesn’t get to learn about them as a character or understand their personal journey.

There is a lot of side drama in this novel. Each of the characters has a secret that can change everything. It’s a secret they never wanted anyone to find out about. But their secrets are revealed when someone posts them on “About That.” So now they have to deal with the fallout of their secrets being revealed.

McManus did a fantastic job with the mystery side of the book because there are clues throughout the book. It helps the reader come up with ideas as to who the killer is. Even with the clues, I didn’t even fully guess correctly. With other books it’s easy to solve the mystery, but not with this one. The audience isn’t just understanding the book, they’re trying to look for the smallest details that can help unravel the mystery.

In each new chapter, or somewhere within the chapter, it switches to different perspectives. The perspectives are from Bronwyn’s, Addy’s, Nate’s, and Cooper’s points of view. Each time it switches characters, McManus writes the name of the character, the day of the week, the date, and the time, which helps readers keep track of who’s narrating. Also, the pace of the book was effective. It doesn’t feel too fast or too slow, so the reader will get a lot of information without getting bored. 

This novel was so enjoyable, I didn’t want to put it down. I would read for an hour or sometimes more. It was so much fun reading the book, as well as trying to solve the mystery. There’s a TV show on “Peacock” based on this novel that I thought was pretty good, but it is a little different from the book. 

I rated this book a ten out of ten, and I think anyone that likes mystery or realistic fiction will like this book, too. Also, there’s a sequel called One of Us is Next, which I haven’t read yet, but I’m planning to. But I hope every single person reading this will try out this amazing book, and I hope you can solve the mystery.

Victoria

Delacorte Press, 358 pages