Broken Things

Lauren Oliver leaves the dystopian register behind in Broken Things and writes contemporary YA mystery instead. Five years before the book opens, three girls were accused of murdering their best friend in what the press called the Monsters of Brickhouse Lane case. Two of them, Mia and Brynn, were never charged but have lived under the suspicion ever since.

The book moves between past and present, slowly filling in what the girls were actually doing in the woods that day and how the rumors got out of hand. The friend group’s obsession with a fantasy book, similar in spirit to a real young-adult fantasy series, runs through both timelines.

Oliver is good at the slow reveal. The reader learns alongside the characters. The ending earns its complications.

For readers who liked Karen M. McManus’s One of Us Is Lying or Jennifer Donnelly’s Revolution, this is in adjacent territory. Standalone, no sequel needed.