that one girl who reviews

“‘I’m here to tell you about the worst time of my life,’ he says in a low, earnest tone, which is how he always starts. And then, with his hands gripping the edge of the podium and his eyes locked on the students in front of him, he tells them about the worst time of mine,” says Addy Prentiss, one of the three narrators of Karen M. McManus’s latest novel, One of Us is Back.

Accompanied by Nate Macauley and Phoebe Lawton, the three characters serve as our guides to this newest mystery plucked straight from the depths of McManus’s brain. The third novel in the One of Us is Lying series has outdone it’s predecessors with it’s riveting plot and dynamic character relationships. 

While One of Us is Lying left pretty big shoes to fill (One of Us is Next – not so much), it was hard to see how McManus could possibly outdo her debut novel while tying up these beloved character storylines in a way that would best suit them.

Yet, One of Us is Back serves as a terrific ending to the series, leaving the audience with a beautifully gift wrapped little box of a plot. 

The novel brings back Addy, Nate, Bronwyn, Cooper, Kris, Phoebe, Maeve and Knox, otherwise known as the “Bayview Crew,” following them as they navigate the town’s newest killer-game combination. 

Bringing back Jake Riordan, resident psychopath and Addy’s ex-boyfriend, served as quite the show-stopper. McManus does an excellent job at showing Addy’s trauma through not only her POV chapters, but also Nate and Phoebe’s. 

In addition to the POV chapters, McManus gave her readers an extra treat with some select Simon/Jake chapters that served as backstory to the current timeline. While she didn’t have to delve into the “why” – sometimes people are just eerily psychotic – it was extremely well done and very interesting to see the inner-workings of a young villain and his sinisterly innocent best-friend (or ex-best-friend).

While the Bayview Crew certainly has a fine dynamic in this novel, it is a little difficult to see how they got to this point. Addy, Nate, Bronwyn, Cooper and Kris knew each other in the first novel with Bronwyn’s sister, Maeve, befriending Knox and Phoebe in the second. But, how did all of these characters suddenly become grouped together in the final novel?

That question remains unsolved. While the answer is probably because McManus needed a way for all the characters to be together in a way that makes sense and the groups are easily connected through Bronwyn and Maeve’s familial relationship, the actual inclusion of one another as some big friend group just seems forced.

It’s not entirely impossible, but it doesn’t seem like traumatic incidents would be enough to make you friends-for-life just because it happened in the same town. 

However, while friendships might not be McManus’s forte, she certainly knows how to write a family relationship. 

Phoebe is the main star of this seeing as her siblings were the driving force of the last novel, One of Us is Next. While their relationship may have fallen flat in that book, McManus was able to right her wrongs by playing into Phoebe’s trauma with her brother’s questionable behavior and her sister’s lack of interaction. 

While it’s sad to see the series come to an end, McManus does an excellent job at leaving the reader satisfied with the conclusion. Our beloved characters have brighter days ahead – not perfect, but definitely brighter – while our most hated characters get exactly what they deserve. 
One of Us is Back serves a great lesson for those of you interested in writing mystery novels – give your readers a mystery worth solving.