The story I will be reviewing is “One of Us is Next”, which is a mystery novel written by Karen M. McManus. The story follows from the first story ”One of Us is Lying” with the original characters, Nate Macauley, Bronwyn Rojas, Addy Prentiss, and Cooper Clay. Now a short plot on the original story, the four main characters are subjected as victims to an unknown death case. The person killed was Simon Kelleher, who was the creator of the gossip app “About That” which exposed students to others' secrets and of course, gossip. When Simon died, it was at the detention room with Nate, Addy, Bronwyn, and Cooper which made police suspect it was them. 

The first story in my opinion was great and totally gave off the perspective the author wanted. It had a good balance between surprise, action, mystery, etc. Although there were some problems that I thought the author could’ve done better on, overall it was a great story!

Now moving on with the sequel, the plot takes us back to Bayview High. The students, Maeve, Knox, and Phoebe receive a group text about a game of “Truth or Dare” among the whole student population. Choosing “Dare” presents a challenge and “Truth” reveals a secret which can sometimes be super personal or scary. Even as secrets are exposed and revealed, the students can’t seem to help but enjoy the game and it’s ominous warnings to “always choose dare over truth”. But things start taking a deep turn as a new dead body is found in Bayview.

 I personally enjoyed the immense suspense of the story as well as the amount of surprises it gave me! I also enjoyed how well the story connected with the first with the story plot and the characters. It was really enjoyable although I don’t recommend it for readers below 10 just like the first story. Now the parts I didn’t like were when the story for some reason went off plot and introduced characters unexpectedly. This didn’t happen super often but it happened a few times and it made me lose track of what was going on. 

Now do I recommend it to other teen readers? Yes I 100% think that other readers should read it! Overall I think that lots of teen readers would enjoy this suspense mystery novel. For those who read the first book, I recommend reading the sequel just because it is the second part to the original! I loved the sequel just slightly better than the original story but that’s my opinion and I’m so excited for other teen readers to read and review it! 

Check out One of Us is Next from the Newport Beach Public Library!