The Reader's Room

Non 1001 Book Review: One of us is Lying Karen M McManus

One of us is Lying by Karen M McManus
Published in: 2017
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★
Find it here: One of us is Lying

This ARC was provided by Penguin Random House UK (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis from Goodreads: One of Us Is Lying is the story of what happens when five strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. Everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide.

Pay close attention and you might solve this.

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention.

Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule.

Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess.

Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing.

Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher.

And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High’s notorious gossip app.

Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention Simon’s dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn’t an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he’d planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who’s still on the loose?

Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.

Book Worm’s Thoughts: Firstly, I would like to correct one thing in the Goodreads synopsis. The 5 people who go into detention are not strangers, they all know each other, or at the very least know of each other. I don’t think there is actually such a thing as a stranger in a closed environment like a school.

This is a YA thriller and, as such, it is light on the gory stuff. While there is tension in the narrative, I never felt that anyone was in real danger. For me, it was more a closed room mystery and with that premise in mind it worked really well.

There were 2 big reveals in the narrative and if you were paying attention they were both obvious. This is a good thing and a bad thing. Good because I hate books where the reader couldn’t possibly solve the crime and bad because I do like to be kept guessing slightly longer than the book allowed.

The narrative switches between the 4 characters who “survive” detention and as the book went on I became more and more invested in them, as they shared their faults and flaws and began to develop beyond the stereotypes with which we are first presented. There is also one brilliant scene in the school canteen that I can’t share for fear of spoilers, but all I will say is bad boy Nate is my hero in that scene.

This is a solid 3 star read with interesting characters and a touch of teen romance thrown in for good measure.

Who would like this book? If you like murder mysteries that won’t give you nightmares, this would be a good choice for you. I would also recommend this to a teenaged audience as it deals with issues that many teenagers face at school.

Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here: One of us is Lying

We want to hear from you! Have you read this book? What did you think? 

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

What makes us who are with regard to our cultural identity? Is our identity determined by our biological parents, the people who raise us, the community around us, our own actions and feelings? These are just a few of the questions raised by Lisa Ko in her book The Leavers.  Read more

 The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda

The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda
Published in: 2017
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★
Find it here: Perfect Stranger

This ARC was provided by Simon & Schuster (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis from Goodreads: In the masterful follow-up to the runaway hit All the Missing Girls, a journalist sets out to find a missing friend, a friend who may never have existed at all.

Confronted by a restraining order and the threat of a lawsuit, failed journalist Leah Stevens needs to get out of Boston when she runs into an old friend, Emmy Grey, who has just left a troubled relationship. Emmy proposes they move to rural Pennsylvania, where Leah can get a teaching position and both women can start again. But their new start is threatened when a woman with an eerie resemblance to Leah is assaulted by the lake, and Emmy disappears days later.

Determined to find Emmy, Leah cooperates with Kyle Donovan, a handsome young police officer on the case. As they investigate her friend’s life for clues, Leah begins to wonder: did she ever really know Emmy at all? With no friends, family, or a digital footprint, the police begin to suspect that there is no Emmy Grey. Soon Leah’s credibility is at stake, and she is forced to revisit her past: the article that ruined her career. To save herself, Leah must uncover the truth about Emmy Grey—and along the way, confront her old demons, find out who she can really trust, and clear her own name.

Everyone in this rural Pennsylvanian town has something to hide—including Leah herself. How do you uncover the truth when you are busy hiding your own?

Book Worm’s Thoughts: Last year I read and loved Megan Miranda’s All the Missing Girls (a thriller told entirely in reverse) so I was excited to read her latest book.

Like a lot of other reviewers, the first thing I have to say is that this is nothing like All the Missing Girls. This is a straightforward, chronological thriller and any time we visit the past, it is in the form of a memory. For me, this was a solid 3 star thriller. It proceeds at a fast pace, there are plenty of twists and turns, and I was up until midnight finishing it (bear in mind I am usually in bed by 10:00 at the latest and normally asleep by 10:30). So I was definitely hooked by the storyline.

I liked the characters although I did feel some of their actions were unrealistic, or would have raised several eyebrows if they had behaved that way in the real world. I had to accept that this was fiction and not real life in order to be able to gloss over the fact that Leah was able to become a teacher with no background check. I mean really?? does this happen in the USA??

The background characters are interesting and I think there is the potential for another book based around the secondary characters. I am sure Megan Miranda could still create a book full of suspense and unexpected turns.

Overall, this provided some light-hearted escapism from my more intense reading.

Who would like this? I would recommend this to anyone who likes a good thriller, anyone who likes a book where you don’t know who you can trust, and anyone who is able to suspend belief and just go with the flow no matter where the narrative takes you.

Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here: Perfect Stranger

We want to hear from you! Have you read this book? What did you think? 

Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

Elizabeth Strout is out with a new book that is a companion work to her Booker Nominated novel, My Name is Lucy Barton. Keep reading to see what I thought of this book. Read more

Read Around the World Challenge: Colombia

Last week we mentioned that we’ll be hosting a Read Around the World Challenge, expanding our current feature to make it more interactive. Lots of you submitted country nominations across various platforms (Litsy, Instagram, and here). The randomizer has selected the winners. If your country nominee didn’t make it this year, it will automatically be placed on the list for next year.

First up…. Read more

April Monthly Recap

Time for our April 2017 monthly recap. Find out which books were favorites and which were duds. We’ll end our wrap up with a a list of books due out this month and a glimpse of our upcoming content. We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read this month and what you look forward to reading in May.

Read more

Read Around the World with us

Those of you who have been following our blog for a while are probably familiar with our Read Around the World posts when we pick a book from different countries around the world. We thought we’d mix things up a little and make it into an interactive activity for all of you to join in. Read more

Non 1001 Book Review: The Evening Road by Laird Hunt

While I’m away on vacation, Book Worm has been busy reading and reviewing books for all of us. We’ll be posting several of those reviews in the next few weeks. This week, Book Worm reviews The Evening Road by Laird Hunt. Keep reading to see what she thought. Read more

The Sunshine Blogger Award

Veronica of The Thousand Book Project nominated us for the Sunshine Blogger Award! To be perfectly honest, we don’t normally respond to these (although we appreciate the sentiment) because they can clutter up the blog and we have so many book reviews we try to squeeze in.  However, we’re making a decision to respond to one of these per year (thanks in no small part to us both being consumed by Infinite Jest and having fewer book reviews to post in the last month). Thank you to Veronica for thinking of us. You should check out her blog if you aren’t following it already. We love her blog.

The rules of the award are: 1) Thank the person who nominated you, 2) answer 11 questions posed by the person who nominated you, and 3) nominate 11 bloggers to receive the award.
We love Veronica’s questions so without further ado here are the questions and our answers:

1. If you could meet one person, alive or dead, who would it be?
BW: Margaret Atwood the woman is a genius.
Jen: David Foster Wallace. I have s many questions.
2. Do you hoard books or do you buy/borrow, read, and then let them go?
BW: I am a buy, borrow and let them go type of reader. Only books I really love get to stay on the book shelf once read.
Jen: I buy/borrow too many books to hold on to all of them. Like Book Worm, I only keep the books I either envision rereading or that I want to save for my daughter when she grows up. The rest go into my Little Free Library.
3. Do your books look read when you’re done with them or do you keep them in pristine condition?
BW: My books definitely look read!
Jen: Pristine condition. I’m ridiculous with the books I read. I don’t bend the covers, don’t dog ear pages, and when I’m not reading them, I place them between heavy items so the covers don’t get wrinkles.
4. If you couldn’t use your phone for a day, would you panic or would you feel free?
BW: One day I would be fine…I think.
Jen: Free. I use my phone way too much but I’d like the freedom of leaving it behind for the day.
5. Could you live without social media?
BW: Yes
Jen: No. I am constantly on social media. I have instagram, Litsy, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads accounts. I grew up in both England and Costa Rica and my social media accounts are how I stay in touch with my international friends.
6. If you could recommend one tv show for people to watch, what would it be and why?
BW: Nashville. I love the stories and the music and Deacon Claybourne is sooo hot.
Jen: The Wire. It’s smart, realistic, and all-around the best tv show I have ever watched. I’ve heard it described by some as a visual novel due to its amazing dialogue and brilliantly written scripts.
7. If an author, or other artist, makes a comment you don’t agree with, does it change how you feel about their work?
BW: I would like to say no but have never encountered this situation.
Jen: I think it depends on the comment. I don’t have to agree with authors to enjoy their work but if they came out with something really sexist/racist/homophobic, it would probably change how much I would want to buy future novels.
8. Sweet or salty?
BW: both together I adore sweet and salty popcorn.
Jen: Sweet.
9. Romance or adventure?
BW: both.
Jen: Adventure. Romance is my least favorite genre.
10. Breakfast for breakfast or breakfast for dinner?
BW: breakfast for breakfast.
Jen: I’d rather have dinner or lunch for breakfast. I’m not a big breakfast person. I love coffee but I don’t love other traditional breakfast foods (eggs, cereal, pancakes, etc).
11. If you could pick one person to narrate every audiobook, who would it be?
BW: I have never listened to an audio book and don’t really intend to, so no comment.
Jen: Neil Gaiman. I’d listen to him narrate a phone book.

We are not going to officially nominate any other bloggers to answer questions but we would like to mention a few blogs that we think you should check out and deserve all the awards (in addition to Veronica’s blog mentioned above). We follow and love quite a few blogs but here are a few of our very favorites:

BookerTalk
Naomi from Consumed by Ink
The Book Stop

A little blog of books

What I think about when I think about reading 

Any blogger who would like to participate in answer questions, feel free to join with the following questions:

1. Favorite place to read?
2. Ebook or paper book?
3. Which book character would you most like to meet and why?
4. Have you ever seen a film that was better than the book, which film and why?
5. Which fictional place do you most want to visit.
6. Tea or coffee?
7. Who is your author crush?
8. Literary pet peeves?
9. What do you do when you’re not reading?
10. First book that made you cry?
11. Last book you bailed on?