Blog, experiments & fun stuff
Such Charming Liars - Karen McManus
When Kat and Liam’s scam‑artist families collide, the teens realise they’re in danger and can only rely on each other. It gets worse before it gets better — but can Kat and Liam find a way out of this alive?
Kat and her estranged almost‑stepbrother Liam are thrown back together during a high‑stakes con at a billionaire’s birthday party, where a murder forces them to team up. As their scam‑artist families collide, the teens realise they’re in danger and can only rely on each other. It gets worse before it gets better — but can Kat and Liam find a way out of this alive?
Karen McManus’s latest novel, Such Charming Liars, is… bad. And as much as I hate to say this — because I can’t recommend reading enough — I genuinely wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone. It was readable, sure, but I felt like the pages were sucking the life out of me, which was incredibly disappointing. Especially because I’m in love with the One of Us Is Lying trilogy. I’ve read every single one of McManus’s novels and never had a single issue with any of them. In fact, I’ve reread a few just to relive the thrill; they were that good. But this 2024 release? I don’t think I’ll be reaching for it again anytime soon, if ever.
For starters, I didn’t get on well with Kat and Liam. I disliked Kat and found it very hard to connect with her, which made it impossible to root for her. She annoyed me — and I know that’s blunt — but I really, really wanted to shake some sense into her because she said and did some pretty stupid things. Yes, I know that without all her silly decisions the story would’ve been hella boring, but Kat could’ve been so much more interesting and realistic without all the corny behaviour and dialogue. I cringed too many times. The dialogue felt dumb and improbable, and that alone made the book tough to get through. And while we’re on the topic of characters, I didn’t like the family dynamics either. I totally understand that neither of these families is a regular, functioning family, but the way Kat behaved around her mother was just odd. I don’t feel like any 16‑year‑old would act the way she did. Teens might become distant, they might hate their parent, they might ignore authority — but becoming their mother’s protector? That dynamic didn’t land. Liam and Kat acted way older than 16, which made their conversations and choices feel out of place for their age group. The only thing that hinted at their actual age was their naïveté, but even that annoyed me because it didn’t match the way they were conducting themselves otherwise.
It all became quite cheesy and made the story harder to believe. Not to mention how information‑heavy it felt — a tiring, drawn‑out read when all I wanted to do was put the book down and end my unexpected bout of disappointment.
However, I write these reviews for you in the hopes that they help you decide whether you want to read a certain novel or not. So I have a duty to finish every book I pick up… unless it starts making my life a living hell. And to be fair, the fact that I soldiered on with this must mean something, right? It was decent to a certain extent. If you simply want to escape life for a bit and don’t feel like taking a book too seriously, Such Charming Liars might work for you. In that sense, I’d recommend it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t waste your time.
Besides, there are better heist novels out there. Fantasy heists like Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows and Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora; classic thrillers like Michael Crichton’s The Great Train Robbery; and contemporary works like Grace D. Li’s Portrait of a Thief and S.A. Cosby’s Blacktop Wasteland. I can’t vouch for all of them, but I know The Great Train Robbery is fantastic and well worth the read, even if you’re not a fan of older texts. And Six of Crows has been read by a close friend of mine who loves it — and as El from Stranger Things says, “friends don’t lie,” so I believe her. It’s on my TBR list and i have a much better feeling about that genre and heist, than this one i’m writing about. As for you, I may not be your friend, but trust me when I say this novel isn’t as good as McManus’s other ones. There are plenty of people out there who agree with me, too.
For now, I’m sorry to bring you this let‑down, but I hope it gives you some clarity when choosing between Such Charming Liars and another heist novel in the future. Hint hint: choose the latter.
If you wish to buy this novel, click on the link below!