Digital audiobook performed by Maria Liatis, Holly Linneman, Fred Berman and Karissa Vacker.
2.5**

This is a sequel to the immensely popular One of Us is Lying. I understand the pressure, especially in the YA market, to produce series, especially when you have a hit with the first effort. But I think the author should have quit when she was ahead.

It’s a year after the events of the first book and those students have moved on to college or careers. But social media needs to fill the gossip void and all sorts of copy-cat apps have appeared in the meantime. Simon may be long gone, but someone seems determined to keep his legacy alive. And this time it’s a challenge game: Truth or Dare.

If you refuse the dare some “truth” about you will be revealed, and after the first student is targeted and her dark secret is revealed, everyone quickly decides that the best way to deal with whoever is running the game is to take the dare. And then the game turns deadly.

I really did not like this sequel. I was never invested in the kids and thought the plot was manipulative (although, that was probably the point). Just way too much drama for drama’s sake, in my opinion.

The ending leads me to believe a further sequel might be in the works. If so, I won’t bother to read it.

The audiobook was performed by four talented voice artists, which helped in determining which of the characters was narrating. ( )

The Bayview High group Knox, Maeve, Phoebe and Luis are out to find out how a student died under strange circumstances. Was it part of the Truth or Dare game or was it murder? The group of students follow the clues. The conclusion is not what you suspect, and the ending was cleverly done. ( )

Just in case it isn't obvious, you shouldn't read this book, or even this review, unless you're comfortable with the possibility of getting major spoilers for the first book in the series, One of Us Is Lying. You've been warned.

It's been a year since the events of the first book, and although Simon copycats have occasionally popped up, none of them have stuck around for long - it's hard to be as devious as Simon was, and as well-informed about everyone's secrets. When Bayview High students suddenly get texts from yet another Simon copycat telling them that they're going to be playing Truth or Dare, everyone figures it'll fizzle out like the other times. The anonymous texter picks Phoebe as their first victim, and she ignores them...only for one of her most hurtful secrets to be revealed to everyone when she misses the deadline to play along.

Who is this person, and what's their goal? Those questions are on everyone's minds as the game goes from hurtful and/or dangerous to deadly.

It's been a couple years since I read the first book, but there were enough details in this one to remind me of what happened and the basics of who all the returning characters were. A lot of familiar faces (the Bayview Four, Luis, Eli, etc.) made appearances and had varying levels of involvement in the story, but the POV characters, this time around, were Maeve (Bronwyn's younger sister), Knox (Maeve's best friend, and currently an intern at Unproven), and Phoebe (works as a waitress at Luis's family's restaurant).

Although the setup for this book wasn't as intriguing as the first one, I liked the new POV characters well enough. Maeve was the relatively familiar core - readers already knew a bit about her, her past struggles with leukemia, and her actions in the first book. She spends a large chunk of the book secretly worried that she's having a cancer relapse (I worried right along with her every time she got another nosebleed), but it's later revealed that she's still cancer-free. Knox was probably the least interesting of the three POV characters, but he was still a decent guy I could root for, and I ended up liking Phoebe a lot more than I initially thought I would.

Bronwyn and Nate continued to be kind of exhausting - it would have been weird not to have any updates about them and their relationship, but I was much less interested in them than I was in the POV characters' potential romances. That's one thing I definitely liked about this book more than the first one - the romantic subplots. They developed nicely and didn't feel overdone in the face of everything else going on in the story.

I guessed one of the book's big revelations well before the end, and certainly well before the other characters, although there were still aspects that surprised me. I didn't see that final piece coming at all, and I'm doubtful that the decisions certain characters made about it would hold up well if the story had continued any further.

As usual, McManus delivers a decent but not stellar YA mystery/thriller.

Extras:

Includes a book discussion guide and an interview with the author.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

4.5 stars. McManus is officially my favorite YA mystery/thriller author. I think I still prefer One of Us is Lying, but this was a good sequel as well. I did see the twist coming in this one, but it could be because I'm getting use to her writing and know what to look for now. It's going to be harder to throw me off with her future books, but I still look forward to them. ( )

Most of the book was kind of slow but the end (the last 80%) was really good, right up to the last page! ( )