Review: Nothing More To Tell

Nothing More To Tell
By Karen M McManus

Published By: Penguin
Publication Date: September 1, 2022
Date Read: November 30, 2022
Genre: YA – Thriller
Source: Bought
Format: Paperback
Pages: 356

From Goodreads:
True crime can leave a false trail.

Four years ago, Brynn left Saint Ambrose School following the shocking murder of her favourite teacher. The case was never solved, but she’s sure that the three kids who found Mr. Larkin’s body know more than they’re telling, especially her ex-best friend Tripp Talbot. He’s definitely hiding something.

When Brynn gets an internship working on a popular true-crime show, she decides to investigate what really happened that day in the woods. But the further she dives into the past, the more secrets she finds.

Four years ago someone got away with murder. Now it’s time to uncover the truth . . .

I haven’t read all of Karen M McManus’s books. I read One of Us is Lying not long after it first came out and I absolutely loved it. Since then, I have bought every single one of her books and have been so excited to dive into them. When Nothing More To Tell was chosen as my YA Book Club November pick, I was so excited to dive into another one of her books. Unfortunately, this one just didn’t live up to my expectations.

Nothing More To Tell follows the story of Brynn, a girl who has just moved back to her hometown. The hometown where her favourite teacher mysteriously died, and the crime was never solved. While completing an internship at a true crime podcast, they start investigating this cold case and Brynn is determined to get to the bottom of it.

The premise of this book was really strong, and I was really excited to see if I could guess ‘who dunnit’. Usually I do… and this time I kind of did… kind of didn’t? Usually this is a really good thing, but for this book I was just left feeling deflated and like we didn’t truly know who the killer was. The revelation kind of made sense… but there was so many mini mysteries around the main one, that it just kind of took away from the revelation. Instead of feeling like ‘yes, we know who did it’ I was left going ‘what the hell did I just read’. And I don’t truly know if I can tell anyone what really happened. The whole thing just didn’t make sense.

By the time I got three-quarters of the way through this book, I was bored. I was sick of all these smaller mysteries around the main plot, that I started skim reading because I just wanted to get to the end already. A part of me feels like the author herself didn’t really know who the killer was going to be until right at the very end. It kind of made me feel like the smaller mysteries around the main murder were taking precedence and that’s not what I was reading for. I was reading it to find out the killer. At one point, I didn’t really feel like we were going to find out at all and that is such a bizarre feeling when reading a mystery/thriller book.

I really wish I had loved this one. Will I read it again? Absolutely not. Am I swearing off Karen’s other books? No! Because I loved One Of Us Is Lying, and I’m hoping her other books are more along the lines of that one than this one. I am really really disappointed in it. If you’re looking for an amazing thriller / mystery… you can probably skip this one.

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