Calling all One Of Us Is Lying fans: this is not a drill! Now that I have your attention, I have some news, mainly in regards to the book’s upcoming TV show treatment!
For those not familiar with the story, here is the premise: part mystery, part drama, and all parts YA, Karen M. McManus’s debut novel tells the story of five students walking into detention (a brain, an athlete, a sort-of basket case, a princess, and a criminal) and four of them coming out as suspects of the murder of the fifth student, who died before their detention’s end. In case you were wondering, the fifth student was this book’s basket case: an outcast who was planning to post juicy secrets the other four students on his gossip app the very next day.
Image via Amazon
The novel is a murder mystery version of The Breakfast Club. (And no, this is not the first season of Riverdale.)
While the release of One Of Us Is Lying’s sequel book One Of Us Is Next will surely kick off the new year on January 7th, here’s a piece of news that will last the fans of McManus’s novel and the will-be fans of its TV series treatment, stated to be released on Peacock (NBCUniversal’s streaming service) hopefully later in 2020, for the rest of this year: we finally have a casting list!
Unlike the titular liar in question among the novel’s main suspects, we are not lying!
So, the list of the cast is as follows (from left to right): Chibuikem Uche is Cooper, the athlete; Annalisa Cochrane is Addy, the beauty; Marianly Tejada is Bronwyn, the brain; and Cooper van Grootel is Nate, the criminal.
Image via Yahoo Finance
And the actor who would play Simon is currently unknown. (I guess he wanted his identity to be a secret so he wouldn’t be killed by the time the show comes out…)
While we still don’t have a Simon, we do have other actors for the other characters within the story: Jessica McLeod will be Janae, a friend of Simon’s who hates her fake classmates and strives to honor Simon’s memory and legacy; Barrett Carnahan will be Jake, Addy’s boyfriend as well as captain of the football team; and Melissa Collazo will portray Maeve, Bronwyn’s younger sister who battled leukemia when she was younger and wants to pick up where she left off in her life.
The best part of this news of our cast is that McManus herself, stamped her approval on these casting choices! While we can get behind the author’s last word on these decisions in adapting their work, we have yet to find out next year for sure if these actors are fit for their roles.
In case you want to check out the book yourself ahead of time (and you definitely should), first check out this book trailer to clue you in on what’s to come…
Featured Image via BookBub