Let’s start with the bad for this review. I’m feeling a little less peppy than normal, so it feels fitting to start with what I didn’t like (which, to be fair, isn’t a huge amount of things). Alright, so I’m gonna do my best not to mention anything that might be considered a spoiler until I get to the spoiler section of my review.

Everything made sense in this book. All of it tied together well and there weren’t any loose ends (except for one thing, but I’ll mention that in the spoilers and I actually liked this loose end). The problem with it, though, is that is was so anticlimactic. We go through this whole journey of the “whodunit,” but it’s literally never surprising who was involved and who the culprits were. I’ll tell you this now, the whole reason I fell in love with One of Us is Lying is because it was so unpredictable and amazing!! I don’t know about anyone else, but none of her books have yet to hold the weight that One of Us is Lying did. I don’t know if it’s because she got so big afterwards and pushed out many novels shortly after, or if that was her book. The book that will define her career forever. Regardless, I was disappointed by how predictable everything was. 

Okay, so if I’m being honest, that was my main pet peeve about the book (at least the one that doesn’t include spoilers). On to what I like about this book. The characters for one thing. I love Mateo, Ivy, and Cal. They felt like full characters with so much development and they acted like teenagers. That’s my main thing that I love about McManus’ books. Her adolescent characters never act like they are adults. They act their age, which makes the characters themselves so much more believable. 

I also always love how well everything is plotted out (even if it is predictable). It’s amazing when you can look back at scenes in a book and have that eureka moment where you start to see everything tie together. By far, my absolute favorite thing about reading good books. 

Spoilers ahead.

Alright, I don’t have too much to spoil, but there are two things that I’d like to discuss here. 

First, jeezum I predicted it was Coach Kendall and Ms. Jamison from like the moment we had someone to put blame on. First of all, Ms. Jamison is a sleaze, so there’s that. Coach Kendall? Yeah, well, after the eighth time they described him as “so kind,” “so nice,” “always helpful,” I was like, there’s no way he’s not the literal bad guy. 

Secondly, the last thing I wanna discuss in the spoilers is that loose end I mentioned earlier. I’m the type of person who likes novels that don’t wrap up in a shiny nice little bow. Having Ms. Jamison dating Mateo’s dad? It was awesome. I loved having that tidbit added to the book. The only thing that I didn’t like about it is can someone really be that gullible? I mean, that lady made a lot of stuff go wrong for his son, Mateo. You’re really just gonna let that go and start dating her? Yeah, okay….

If you’re in the mood for more mystery, I definitely suggest checking out the Truly Devious series by Maureen Johnson (you can check out my review for The Box in the Woods here), or A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series by Holly Jackson (all three of the books are reviewed on my blog but you can read the review for the first book here). 

Overall, this novel was an easy read. Like I said earlier, it falls right in the middle of good and not so good. On Goodreads, I gave it four stars, but I’m rounding up from 3.5 so there’s that. If you like McManus’ other novels, you’ll definitely like this one because I did. It’s just not going to blow you out the water. 

Source: Personal Copy