A review by sadgirlautumn
One of Us Is Back by Karen M. McManus

mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I have such mixed feelings about this book. I wanted to like it so bad and I did really enjoy getting to hang out with these characters again but everything else plot wise was a mess. A lot of this book felt like filler and due to certain things that happened in this book every time I was supposed to feel scared for the characters I didn't because they all felt so immune to everything that was happening around them. At one point there was a literal character death and I nearly forgot about it because the characters who were supposed to be solving this big mystery were barely even bringing it up. The ending didn't feel like much of a shock and one particular detail (spoiler:
Evie was going to stop the cycle by pinning two deaths on a 13 year old boy??? It honestly didn't make that much sense to me motive wise. And Phoebe said she didn't want Evie to get in trouble for what she did after she was going to pin it all on her brother?? It made no sense!
) keeps making me angry every time I think about it. This book just didn't match up to the other two at all especially considering how the last one ended. I don't know how the author thought she could have ever topped that.