Book Review | One of Us Is Next, or, Karen McManus Gives Me a Heart Attack

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Obviously.

Except, not totally. There is always the chance that the sequel will almost-but-not-quite live up to the hype and expectations. Even so, I was so willing to bet that this book would be my second five star read of the year (Daisy Jones was my first, go figure), that I SPENT MONEY on it.

If you missed out on my earlier ramblings, let me clarify: I very, very rarely buy books. Or, at least, at full price. I struggle big time with two things - space to keep all the books I want (we live in an apartment), and the fact that I pretty much refuse to spend more than $1.99 on a book I can't even smell. I WILL NOT purchase Kindle books that cost more than that. Period. End of story.

So, this was not a problem because I requested One of Us Is Next from the library and became 15th in line on four copies. I tweeted to my library and asked if they would purchase a couple more, and they agreed! I became 15th on six copies. No problem, I was doing fine, release date was coming up, I was posting about Next a lot. 

And then...

One of Us Is Lying was on Amazon for $1.99 (and might still be). OBVIOUSLY I could not pass up owning it at that price, and decided to re-read it in preparation for Next. I reread it in a couple hours, and even stayed up way too late doing so. Oh well. Worth it. The thing is though, even as I inched closer to getting Next, I was sitting at ninth. Nine on six copies is not terrible, but my brain started telling me that that's an awfully long time to wait - and who the hell are these people that let books sit on the hold shelf for days?!?! ESPECIALLY when it is THIS book that we have been waiting for for YEARS! Okay, not like, years years, but a couple.

Before I knew it, One of Us Is Next was at home on my Kindle and I plowed through it in a couple of hours. It was worth every penny.

There's so much I want to talk about, but I can't. If I do, I will inevitably give away spoilers and I do not want to do that. When a few blogger friends convinced me to try One of Us Is Lying, I took a look at Goodreads and some reviews, and accidentally read one that had no spoiler warning on it, so I knew what happened to Simon before I even cracked open the book. I have tried to be so, so careful even on Twitter, but I know I have failed a little bit when it comes to giving away some things even though I tried not to. I was caught up in the moment, and Tweeting at McManus, who always so graciously responds, encouraging and terrifying me with said responses.

I can say this, however: the book is worth the time and money. So worth it. I appreciated the fact that even though the main cast had changed (Maeve is now a narrator, along with two new characters named Knox and Phoebe), Bronwyn, Nate, Cooper, and Addy are still very much apart of the story and we see them from time to time.

I did not feel like the story was forced or contrived in any way, like sequels can be sometimes. It wasn't far-fetched at all, especially in the world of copy-cats that we have seen in the last twenty years since Columbine. I will say that I had one character in mind as being involved in what was happening, but was not sure of the extent of their involvement right up until it was explained. The other who came to be involved was an interesting surprise and I did not guess their identity, and was waaaay off with the guesses I did make. I truly can't say anything else because it will give the story away. And as always, as McManus does so well, there is a delicious twist at the end that I did not see coming. Like, totally left-field and it fit. It fit perfectly.

Over the last few months McManus has Tweeted about the book prior to the release. She had me all up in a tizzy about certain characters who I really love and had to worry about big time and the thing that I was dreading happened and I KNEW IT even though I didn't WANT to know it and when it happened I was all like "AAAUUUGGGHH!!" to her on Twitter and she was all like, "I apologize" back. *Sigh*.

I need a third book. It can be done, and McManus can do it well. She has not failed us yet, and if she chooses to make this into a trilogy, it will be great.

Highly highly recommended.