Book Review: Two Can Keep a Secret

High on my list of auto-buys, authors who I would immediately purchase a book from without even reading the sypnosis, sits Karen M. McManus, best-known for her debut novel One of Us is Lying (which I read for the first time three years ago and to date remains one of my favorite books).

Despite having read most of her best-selling books, I had somehow never come around to reading Two Can Keep a Secret. I'm glad I finally did.

The novel follows two twins: Ezra and Ellerey who move from California back to their mother's hometown in the East Coast to live with their grandmother as their mother is in rehab. Their mother, Sadie, had a twin sister named Sarah who mysteriously disappeared the night of homecoming around twenty years ago.

The twins learn that just five years ago, a similar case happened: another homecoming queen, Lacey. Her boyfriend, Declan, and best friend, Mia happen to have moved away and now live in different cities, but the suspicion of the murder falls right on Declan's head.

Ezra and Elley meet Malcom, Declan's younger brother, and Daisy, Mia's younger sister. Declan and Malcom's mother is married to Peter, who is now their step-father, and his daugther Katrin is now their step-sister.

The novel begins picking up the pace when it is revealed that one of Katrin's friends, Brooke, who was also a homecoming queen nominee, goes missing. Ellerey is a mystery fanatic and begins to seek answers about the stran things going on in town. She consults Malcom (and the two have a budding, not-so-subtle romance) and the rest of the novel is an addictive, whodunnit story that'll keep you guessing right till the very end as to which character(s) committed the murder.

Like all novels, there are some things I didn't quite like. I'm not one for spoilers, but there's an interesting relationship between the twins and a police officer in their town. Although the reveal of the police officer to the twins was a well-written sub-plot, I also felt that it was an unnecessary sub-plot and didn't add anything to the main storyline.

I also felt, while reading, that the first half of the book was a bit too slow for me. The second half really picked up the pace and threw a lot of information at the readers all at once. I'm a sucker for a well-timed climax and buildup, and I do believe that has been achieved better in McManus' other novels like You'll Be the Death of Me.

But besides these two small details, this novel was perfection. One thing I like is how McManus writes minorities, she's careful not to let racial or LGTBQ+ parts of someone become their entire personality (and that allows us to see those characters as more than just a filler added for inclusitivity), but she integrates such characteristics into her characters carefully. For example, Mia and Daisy come from an intensive, high-expectation Korean-American household. McManus does an excellent job of tieing their culture onto the stress that the girls, especially Daisy, experience, and how that feeds into their personalites and the decisions they made in the novel.

I mentioned that Ellerey and Malcom had a romantic build-up. To be honest, romance is da double-edged sword in novels where it isn't the main focus. In the aformentioned You'll be the Death of Me, the romance between two of the lead characters felt very forced to me and could've easily been swapped out for a friendship to keep the plot going. However, in this novel, Ellery and Malcom's relationship feels extremely natural and feels like a nice, rich attachment to the book's plot instead of something that detracts from it. I can't see some of the scenes playing out the way they did without these two dating each other, and McManus does an excellent job of portaying their relationship.

Overall, I'd give this book a 9.1/10 (very high on my rankings). McManus has a way with words that sit right in the popular whodunnit genre of mystery. Two Can Keep a Secret is an extremely well-written novel with a subtle plot twist at the end that keeps you thinking for days about it. I would definitely recommend.

Thank you all for reading today's blog post, and I'll see you in the next one!