One of Us is Lying

“A sex tape. A pregnancy scare. Two cheating scandals. And that’s just this week’s update. If all you knew of Bayview High was Simon Kelleher’s gossip app, you’d wonder how anyone found time to go to class.”

The novel’s opening paragraph, this passage is narrated by Bronwyn and speaks to a motif that runs through the novel: the pervasiveness of technology in teens’ lives. Simon’s app, About That, consumes students’ attention. His classmates relish Simon’s gossip but also fear being the subject of it.

This opening passage also highlights two things that become significant in the novel. First, Simon could potentially have many enemies, since his app’s purpose is to make students’ private struggles the subject of public entertainment. Second, the mention of two cheating scandals is significant because it notes that students’ struggles are not unique. Ideally, shared struggles could inspire empathy, as happens later in the book between Addy and Cooper, but Simon’s app instead breeds hypocrisy, encouraging students to gossip about their classmates’ missteps though they have themselves made the same mistakes.

“‘She’s the princess and you’re a jock,’ he says. He thrusts his chin toward Bronwyn, then at Nate. ‘And you’re a brain. And you’re a criminal. You’re all walking teen-movie stereotypes.’

’What about you?’ Bronwyn asks. She’s been hovering near the window, but now goes to her desk and perches on top of it. She crosses her legs and pulls her dark ponytail over one shoulder. Something about her is cuter this year. New glasses, maybe? Longer hair? All of a sudden, she’s kind of working this sexy-nerd thing.

‘I’m the omniscient narrator,’ Simon says.”

Cooper narrates this scene in detention just before Simon drinks the cup of water laced with peanut oil. Simon’s description of himself as “the omniscient narrator” is the first clue that he is orchestrating the events to come (11). Later in the book, Bronwyn will recall Simon referring to himself the omniscient narrator when the group realizes that Simon was not murdered but committed suicide.