Karen M. McManus - One Of Us Is Next

Synopsis

The sequel to ‘One of Us Is Lying’ takes us back to Bayview High – home of the exonerated Bayview 4. Although things seemed to have settled down after Simon’s death, the excitement of it all lead to a surge of copycats. Thankfully, none have been successful… Except from Truth or Dare – a simple game which incites fear and panic in all the students. Pick the truth and your greatest fear gets exposed. Pick a dare and you can keep your secret, even if it means risking your life. Students are selected one by one and forced to take part. So… who’s next?

Likes

It's a new school year with new students but that doesn’t stop the Bayview 4 from making special appearances throughout the book. I was pleased to know that Nate, the most disadvantaged of the group, managed to make something of himself and was really proud of him! As much as I appreciated getting updates on the original 4, I was glad that their appearances were limited and did not overshadow the new protagonists. I think it can be easy for readers to get attached to the characters in the first book of a series, so McManus did well at allowing the reader to hear a little about them without making them the focus of this second book

When I read that there had been copycats of About That, I immediately thought that the novel would lack originality and would emulate the same story but with different characters. But this thankfully wasn’t the case as although McManus was able to inflict the same fear, this was done through a different approach – Truth or Dare. This allowed me to see Truth or Dare as its own thing and not compare it to ‘About That’ due to how dissimilar their approaches were, encouraging me to detach myself from ‘One of Us Is Lying’ and really give ‘One of Us Is Next’ a chance

Dislikes

I’m glad that I was able to read the story from the perspectives of new characters (some of which I had already encountered in the first book) but I felt that there were too many characters to focus on. We had the 3 main characters: Maeve, Knox and Phoebe, but there were also the side characters such as Jules, Brandon and Emma whose dramas I was forced to endure and found it quite difficult to keep track of whose mess was whose. This did cause me to get a little confused at times and I felt that I was a bit too involved in what the side characters were doing, including the Bayview 4. This hindered my ability to familiarise myself with the main characters so when something bad happened, I thought that it was unfortunate but due to the lacking connection I had with them, I can’t say that I cared too much

There were lots of twists and turns which I had a hard time keeping track of. When connections were made, especially in finding out the identity of Truth or Dare’s mastermind and what their plans were with the protagonists, I felt that it was a bit of reach as it seemed forced and prevented me from having that “Oh, I get it moment!”. This may have been due to there being more people involved who were all somehow tangled up in this one big mess, but it just wasn’t very convincing

I felt that Knox was the only one who had some character development as he became bolder and more courageous by the end of the novel. Maeve was the same as she was in ‘One of Us Is Lying’ and her frequent references to her sister prevented me from seeing her as anything other than Bronwyn’s younger hacker sister. As for Phoebe, she could have had great character development but instead remained concerned with her image and who she was seen with so was not much more than superficial throughout the book. Other than Knox, the characters remained stagnant and I neither liked nor disliked them

General Thoughts

Although part of a series, ‘One of Us Is Next’ had the potential to be its own stand-alone book whereby it didn’t need to be so strongly tied to ‘One of Us Is Lying’ but could maintain the same theme but with an entirely different story. Unfortunately, it struggled to do so. The appearance of past characters made it difficult for me to detach from the first book as I found myself being more interested in Bronywn and her peers than the current students and what they were experiencing

The reconciliation between Pheobe and Jules, and Knox and his father seemed forced. Phoebe’s best friend left her in such a nasty way but then all of a sudden, they bump into each other once more at school, forgive one another and become the amicable Jules and ‘Phoebe Jeebies’ again all in a heartbeat. Then you have Knox and his dad who have never seen eye to eye, but it takes just one “sorry” before they’re hugging each other while crying and seem to have moved on from it all. None of these are bad things but they just seemed like very forced happy endings for these relationships which didn’t add anything to the story so I’m not sure what the point was in including them

I did not expect for Emma to be at the centre of this whole mess. I found her to be such a bland character who brought little to the story, so I was surprised that it was her. I felt zero sympathy towards her and wished that she wasn’t such a focal point in the book as whenever she appeared, I just wanted to move onto the next person. I wish she was a little more interesting and had a stronger presence in the book. Nonetheless, I was surprised by the twist, even though it was a bit confusing to keep up with

Rating

I did not enjoy this book as much as the first one but felt that it had an interesting storyline which could have been executed better as there was a lot going on at times which made it difficult to keep on top of everything. Additionally, I felt that some events were a bit of a reach and could have been structured better. Nonetheless, I appreciate that this second book was not an exact replica of the first, but was its own story

Based on this I would give this book a 2.5/5

Would I recommend?

This book unfortunately did not meet my expectations, but I was still glad to have read it to see how the next book in the series would compare to the first. I really enjoyed ‘One of Us Is Lying’ and had hoped to enjoy ‘One of Us Is Next’ to the same extent but was disappointed by my lack of investment in the characters and their situations. I wish this book had been entirely separate from its predecessor as using the same setting of Bayview High and bringing back the Bayview 4 made it difficult to not compare the 2 books. Additionally, I felt that there were too many characters and storylines to keep track of, so it seemed a bit messy at times. As a result, this is unfortunately not a book I would recommend

Favourite Quotes

‘We were so close that we used to have entire conversations without talking’

‘Luis goes still, and for one horrifying second I think he will burst out laughing. If he does, I won’t have to worry about cancer because I’ll die on the spot’

“I’m going to change clothes and inhale my dinner”

‘My hair looks like I combed it with a Weedwacker’