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Solving the case

After Nate is taken to jail, Bronwyn is wracking her brain to find a way to prove his innocence. She is afraid he will get judged unfairly because of his past in juvie. After calming down a little bit, she goes to Nate's mother and together get Eli Kleinfelter, the lawyer from Until Proven, and get him to be the head lawyer in Nate's case. But with one condition, Bronwyn and the other accused could not intervene with their findings. But Bronwyn, being the smart girl that she is,finds a way to keep investigating with the rest of the guys and give it to Eli through an “anonymous” source.

(x)

However, they get onto something but Nate’s lawyer cannot intervene.They create a whole plan so Addy, who has been forming a sort of frienship with Janae (Simon’s only friend), can go to her house, asking her why she has not been showing up at school. After going through hell that afternoon and ending up in the hospital, She gets the truth un tape and Nate is released.

Apparently, Simon was depressed. He was planning on commiting suicide but wanted to go out with a shocker. He had been spending time with creeps online and that is how he got his idea. He reunited all the people who he felt had wronged him in detention that day, and his master plan began. 

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He had forgotten his water bottle on purpose so he would be forced to drink from a cup, and made Jake hid all the EpiPens from the infirmery so Coopèr would not find any when he’d go to grab one. And a few days later, an About That entry is posted showing everyone in detention had a reason to want him dead. If this had gone as planned, all of their lives would have been ruined, Simon would had gone out as a victim and gotten his revenge.

(x)

Things go back to normal once everything is fixed. But, before-Simon’s-death normal, in Nate’s case. He stops hanging out with Bronwyn and the rest, says their friendship was just because of Simon, but now that it was over, they did not need to keep pretending. Both go on with their lives alone, or so they try to. After senior prom Nate goes back to Bronwyn and asks her to be his girlfriend, officially this time, without having to sneak around.

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Arrested suspect

The accusations towards Bronwyn die down soon thanks to her lawyer. The teen keeps on investigating the case on her own and, despite what her lawyer adviced her at the beginning, she does so with the others. The other teenagers were shunned from their respective "friends" so now they only have each other. If people wanted to stare at them, they could do it to all of them together.

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Press was still a big issue, they were constantly on their front doors, and the neighbors were nosy. They reached an agreement to meet after midnight, when press was usually gone and everyone was asleep, at one of the houses under construction, where no one was ever around. Bronwyn was still the brain of the operation, making sure everything was in order. Her relationship with Nate only grew more intimate.

The group makes a brainstorm of the events that happened the day of Simon's death, as well as weeks and even months prior to it.

Someone planted phones in our backpacks Simon was poisoned during detention Bronwyn, Nate, Cooper, Addy & Mr. Avery were in the room The car accident distracted us Jake wrote at least one Tumblr post

Jake and Simon were friends once

Leah hates Simon Aiden Wu hates Simon Simon had a thing for Keely Simon had a violence-loving alter ego online Simon was depressed Janae seems depressed Janae & Simon stopped being friends? (Mcmanus 200-201)

They all stare at it for a long time, but none of it makes sense to any of them. Frustrated and without chance of being closer to the truth, the teenagers go back to their respectives homes. Bronwyn keeps on studying the notes very carefully after, there has to be something there that clears all of them from it and reveals who the real killer is. Few days go by and nothing makes sense, no matter how many times she tries. 

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Her routine though is always the same. Go to school, be stared at by the other students at Bayview High, ignore the press and the many phone calls asking for an interview. The teens keep on trying to solve the case on their own but without much success. One of the only things that keep her sane is Nate. Their usual calls at night to update each other about their day and watching a movie after has become a ritual of theirs, their very own bubble to escape all the craziness for a while. One morning, however, as the Rojas family is watching the news, they find out Nate had been arrested for Simon’s murder and evidence was found in his house.

Bronwyn’s face falls, she had gotten to know Nate the past weeks over their phone calls and escaping the press. She knew he didn’t do it, and now more than ever was she going to find out who was the real killer.

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McManus, Karen. One of us is Lying. New York City. Penguin Books. 2017. Print

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In it together

Police keeps on investing the case, there is more evidence but nothing explicitly incriminating.

Every teen has a lawyer now, except for Nate, he can't afford a fancy lawyer unlike the others. Bronwyn is worried about this, she and Nate have been growing closer lately, in spite of Bronwyn's parents and lawyer's advice to keep away from the others, as to not give the police more reason to suspect them.

As I mentioned before, Bronwyn and Nate are growing closer and closer. He even gave her a disposable phone to talk with her at night without the police tracing their actual phones. It could be said they're falling for each other, but none of them wants to admit it.

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In addition to all this, the story about Simon's murder has gone viral. I reknown true crime network got interested in the case. Now they have to watch an entire 60 minutes documentary about it and deal with the attention the entire country. But Bronwyn, positive as ever, finds a way to turns things outside down for some of them. She reaches to Eli Kleinfelter, the lawyer who appeared on the true crime TV show.

Bronwyn talks to him about his theories on the case and who should they be investigating the most. When everything seems to be going better and she and Nate have sort of defined their relationship, Bronwyn is called into the police station once again. They have found an older, deleted About That entry where Simon talked badly about her little sister and Bronwyn's response to it was "Fuck off and die, Simon"

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One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

“I guess we’re almost friends now, or as friendly as you can get when you’re not one hundred percent sure the other person isn’t framing you for murder.”

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Who is really guilty?

From now on I will be focusing on the character of Bronwyn Rojas.

A few days after Simon’s death, police keeps on investigating and our characters are grieving.

A few tumblr posts pop up from an anonymous writer, which turns out to be the killer. The first one says how they have been planning Simon’s death for quite a while, and how they got the “inspiration” and perfect smoke curtain: everyone at Bayview High wanted Simon dead.

The second post reveals something else, more intriguing. The one responsible for Simon’s death saw him die. This points at one of the other four teenagers who were in the room, too.

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Bronwyn Rojas is a scholar, she is the top of her class and Yale bound. She has good grades and has never failed a subject in her life. Although she did get close to. Let’s just say, chemistry was a hard “challenge” for Bronwyn to tackle.

Months prior Bronwyn had been using a computer in the library and found that the Google Drive of Mr. Camino, the chemistry teacher, was open, and with it, all the tests and homework for the rest of the year. Our girl Bronwyn decided to copy the documents in a flash drive and then used it for months afterwards to get a good grade. A stain in an otherwise spotless record.

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It was after Simon’s funeral a that detective from the case approached Bronwyn and took her, along with her parents, to the police station to make her a few more question about that day. The detective showed her an unpublished article on About That, Simon’s gossip page. It was the article the teenager was supposed to publish the day of the tragedy.

 First time this app has ever featured good-girl BR, possessor of school’s most perfect academic

record. Except she didn’t get that A in chemistry through plain old hard work, unless that’s how

you define stealing tests from Mr. C’s Google Drive. Someone call Yale ....

On the opposite end of the spectrum, our favorite criminal NM’s back to doing what he does

best: making sure the entire school is as high as it wants to be. Pretty sure that’s probation

violation there, N.

MLB plus CC equals a whole lot of green next June, right? Seems inevitable Bayview’s

southpaw will make a splash in the major leagues ... but don’t they have some pretty strict

antijuicing rules? Because CC’s performance was most definitely enhanced during showcase

season.

AP and JR are the perfect couple. Homecoming princess and star running back, in love forthree years straight. Except for that intimate detour A took over the summer with TF at hisbeach house. Even more awkward now that the guys are friends. Think they compare notes?. (One of Us is Lying, page 60)

   Everyone in detention that day was about to be exposed and everyone had a reason to want Simon dead. This makes everyone look guilty, maybe it was a group murder.

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  On their way home, after what happened in the station, Bronwyn was going over on what had happened.  How did Simon know she cheated? Why didn’t he exposed this earlier? What she had done happened months ago, why bring this to light now? What would happen with Yale if this ever gets published? She is also ashamed of cheating and confesses to her parents. They are disappointed on her, but not more than she is of herself.

Names mentioned on the blog

BR: Bronwyn Rojas

Mr. C: Mr. Camino

NM: Nate Macaulay (the bad boy)

MLB: ???

CC: Cooper Clayton (the jock)

AP: Addy Prentis (the popular girl)

JR: Jake (Addy's boyfriend)

TF: TJ (Jake's best friend)

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Murder... but why?

One of us is lying is a mystery, young adult book written by Karen McManus. It is written from each of the characters points of view, giving the readers more insight into the story.

In the first few chapters we are introduced to the main characters, Bronwyn, the nerd; Addy, the popular (usually portrayed as clueless) girl; Cooper, the jock, and Nate, the criminal, and how they ended up in detention because of the same "crime" they didn't commit. Not even thirty minutes into detention, Simon Kelleher, known for running the most popular gossip app in school, drops dead on the floor after drinking a cup of water.

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Police reports say his death was not accidental, the cup was found to have a large amount of peanut oil, and surprise, surprise, Simon was allergic to peanuts, besides, there is more to it than just the peanut oil. Right before his death, he couldn’t find his bottle of water, that is the reason why he drank from a cup. And when he fell to the floor, not one EpiPen was found, neither in his backpack nor the infirmery. This was a murder.

Although most people would blame Nate, the school bad boy, it is too early to jump to accusations or conclusions just yet. We are still getting introduced to the characters, which, yes, are all high school clichés, but there is more to their lives outside of school the others do not know about. Anyone could be the killer, even someone who wasn’t on detention.

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headers one of us is lying