One of Us is Next (July 2020) Buddy Read Discussion - Mina & Elysian & Selina

[Aless, Discord/Readathon Procrastinator]

Welcome to One of Us Is Next Buddy Read Discussion thread! This thread officially opens on July 3rd and anyone can join at any time. Please keep in mind that spoilers are allowed in this thread but only up to the group's current reading place. Do not spoil the book if you've read further than the group. Any extra days can be used to catch up!

Each week we will be reading by chapters. The suggested Buddy Read discussion schedule is as follows:

Week of 7/3
July 3: Part One: Chapter 1-10
July 4: Chapters 11-15 + Part Two: Chapters 1-5

Week of 7/5
July 5: Chapters 6-15
July 6: Chapters 16-25
July 7: Chapters 26-36


PARTICIPANTS
~ Mina
~ Elysian
~ Selina

[mina, Group/Buddy Reads Procrastinator]

😂 Knox being forced into a conversation with an old person is so funny.. but I can relate with that.. and that's not that funny.

chapter 8. The whole group gathering and all that happening is so dramatic and I don't know how I feel about it. Maybe it's a tad like a Spanish telenovela.

I'm up to chapter 13.

[luna ☾]

Man! I'm not actually sure where I am in the book...
*elevator music*

Oh! So I'm in the middle of Chapter 14 @ around 46% in the audiobook and so far I've been enjoying this a lot!

I read the first book in late 2017 so I remember NOTHING. I was probably confused about who's who for the most part of this bc there were just so many character name drops that sounded like they were important but I wasn't sure how lol so I had to google for a "What happened in One of Us is Lying" recap blog posts and now I feel like I'm ready to continue. I rly should have looked for a recap before I started.

But anyway, this has been giving me Pretty Little Liar/Gossip Girl vibes and I do enjoy every character and their personal dramas. So far, I don't have any theories about who might be behind this whole Truth/Dare thing and I'm honestly not even sure if I want to try guessing cause I wanna be surprised! I hope it's not just some random person though... That would be anticlimactic lol

[mina, Group/Buddy Reads Procrastinator]

That's what I did in the first book :D I just read without making any theories who's behind all, I was pulled into the story and I think that's how I'll read this book too.

I haven't moved pass chapter 12, but tomorrow I'm gonna listen to the book on my way to work so I'l catch up and probably be close to the end 😅😬

[luna ☾]

honestly same, because this is so easy to listen to I probably could have finished this in one day if I didn't have a million books to review this weekend... So I might finish tomorrow as well (or maybe stretch it out to the next day) but it will all depend on if coworkers leave me tf alone for the whole day and I get no work calls 🙃

[luna ☾]

Oooohhh! I only got reading again now so I've only just completed Chapter 16!
(view spoiler)[ Knox' memories and how it was triggered by a game, for some reason, really gave me chills. I love mysteries like this where the person involved should know what happened but they for some reason forget. I kind of have a feeling it was just a dare gone wrong which is why Brandon died? but meh, I also don't wanna keep guessing bc I just wanna relax and take it as it comes lol (hide spoiler)]

[mina, Group/Buddy Reads Procrastinator]

@Selina (view spoiler)[I just finished chapter 16 and yes, this type of mystery is good. And I agree with you, I think it was a dare that went so wrong. (hide spoiler)]

[luna ☾]

I COMPLETED IT!

WHAT A FUN RIDE!

Like it was predictable to a point but I really enjoyed it even though it is? Maybe because I came into this with the decision to NOT try to guess the outcome so my expectations were a little low. I think it also helped that I can't remember if I liked the first book or not so I had no expectations coming from book one either.

But that said, there were a lot of times where I was like "maybe it's this person? or maybe it's this person?" (so I guess I couldn't help but guess a little) and I would think to myself "nahhhhhhhh that's probably wrong" then I'd scold myself to stop guessing.

But I got to the end and then I turned out to be right -_- i actually hate that cause it ruined the gd surprise. I was more shocked about being right than about the mystery which always ruins these types of books for me and usually affects my rating... but I'm not gonna do that here bc I enjoyed the characters and their friendships and also the characters from the first book that I couldn't even remember at first lol.

(view spoiler)[The first time I suspected Phoebe's brother was after Knox played the game with him and the game itself triggered Knox to remember something about that day Brandon died. And my thought process was something like "that's weird that Owen's strategies was familiar enough to trigger memories for Knox? maybe somehow he's the one............................nahhh he's like 5 years old or something" 😂😂

Which now that I think about it, I feel like the author did that on purpose cause even Phoebe acknowledged that at some point in the book that she was treating her brother like a toddler and I feel like the author did that to purposely make us dismiss him entirely. Emma's involvement was obvious but Owen was very subtly obvious bc of that time with the game, but readers are most likely to dismiss him bc he's a kid who is always portrayed as almost infantile through his older sister's POV. I honestly was picturing him as this like 5 years old child, I knew he was old enough to know how to spell and play video games but my brain ignored that and was thinking "he's a baby". (hide spoiler)]