Karen M. McManus: One of Us Is Next (Random House 2020)
Many thanks to Maxim Könyvkiadó for sending me the book!
You may have read about One of Us Is Lying and Two Can Keep a Secret before on BogiWrites. I first heard about One of Us Is Lying from foreign booktubers and it immediately piqued my interest and I have read it in English. I really liked it and I finally read it in Hungarian this year, which was also very good. After the Netflix series and release of the book with the movie cover, it was obvious that I would read the sequel as well.
Another death occurs at Bayview High School. However, the story doesn’t start that time, but 10 weeks earlier, when two desperate people start talking in a revenge forum where Simon also posted previously. The high school community is still hungry for gossip, but after Simon’s death, no one was able to replace his app. Until now… Now an unknown person starts a game: Truth or Dare? The rules of the game are simple: from time to time a person is selected who has 24 hours to choose: if you choose Truth – they reveal a secret, if you choose Dare – you get a challenge. The cruel game brings together three young people and together they try to find out who wanted to ruin their lives. Or maybe they weren’t the targets?
Maeve: Bronwyn’s sister, who recovered from severe childhood leukemia and now, unlike her sister, doesn’t know what to do with her life.
Knox: Maeve’s best friend who works as an intern at Eli Kleinfelter’s law firm and tries to prove to his father that he can work hard.
Phoebe: After her father dies, she doesn’t know what she could do to keep her family together and bring herself closer to her beloved sister while hiding a painful secret.
The story once again shows us the darkest bumps of high school life: how hard it is to move forward, but also to make friends in the cruel world of apps and posts. The structure of the story is also interesting, as it starts with a death, but at first, we don’t know who the victim was, it only comes to light after the history is described. The book also briefly features the protagonists of the previous volume, but the focus is on the three new characters from whose point of view we learn what happened. They need to realize that there is much more below the surface than they expected.
For those who liked One of Us Is Lying, I definitely recommend this book because it’s a great conclusion to the story, but you don’t necessarily have to read the first volume because the story can stand alone itself. Enjoy reading!
