I went into The Liar Among Us wanting a tense boarding-school mystery with a local flavour — and Bishhal Paull delivered exactly that. From page one I felt the book’s promise: a missing boy, a whisper over a forgotten radio, and a group of students chasing a truth that keeps slipping through their fingers. The premise hooked me, and I stayed because the story kept finding quieter, stranger ways to unsettle me.
Setting & atmosphere — Valorhouse lived for me
Valorhouse International — the misty, high-altitude boarding school in Sikkim — is the novel’s beating heart. Paull paints it as a place that looks respectable on the outside but breathes secrets from every corridor and dormitory. The fog, the distant hills, the rituals of a closed institution all create a claustrophobic, almost tactile atmosphere that made me feel both nostalgic for schooldays and deeply uneasy about what an elite system can hide. The setting isn’t window-dressing; it’s active in the plot and the mood.
Characters — Angad and the ragtag crew
Angad Sandhu, the freshman who revives the radio club, is the book’s emotional anchor. He’s hungry to be seen, eager for purpose, and imperfect in a way that made me root for him rather than admire him. The other students around him are sketched with enough detail that I cared about their small acts of courage and cowardice. Paull resists turning them into pure archetypes; even the “outcasts” have private, believable motives that complicate every choice they make. My sympathy for Angad grew as the stakes did.
Folklore & the supernatural — a local pulse
One of the book’s smartest moves is how it weaves in regional folklore — names and concepts like Baka, Sudrika, and the more whimsical-yet-threatening Fogfriends — without making the story feel like a lecture on mythology. The supernatural elements arrive as suggestions, as rumors and half-remembered tales, and that restraint made them more effective for me. They never fully explain everything, and I liked that: the ambiguity keeps the threat alive and lets the reader’s imagination complete the picture.
Themes — truth, performance and institutional pressure
Beneath the mystery is a sharper book about performance and how institutions reward certain faces while crushing others. Valorhouse’s systems — the unspoken hierarchies, the shields for excellence and shame — make the search for the missing boy also a search for identity and agency. I found Paull asking quietly difficult questions about what it costs to be seen and what kinds of lies a community tolerates to preserve its image. Those social undercurrents gave the supernatural unease real human stakes.
Pacing & prose — readable with moments of real tension
The novel moves with a steady, readable pace. Paull can be economical when he needs to be and lyrical when the atmosphere demands it. The scares are rarely jumpy; they creep in through an offhand line of dialogue, a strange transmission on the radio, or a corridor that feels too empty. That steady accumulation of dread worked for me — I never felt jolted out of the world he’d built.
What I loved most
I loved how the book felt rooted — not just in a school setting any writer could invent, but in the particular cultural textures of the Northeast. That rootedness made the supernatural more original and the characters’ reactions truer. I also appreciated that Paull trusted the reader; he refused to tie every loose end with a neat bow, which left the book lingering with me after I closed it.
Small quibbles
If I have to nitpick, there were moments when the blend of folklore and plot mechanics felt slightly uneven — a scene that leans heavily on myth may not always slot perfectly into the investigative rhythm. A couple of secondary arcs could have used a touch more room to breathe. These are small gripes next to what the book accomplishes, but they kept the story from being flawless for me.
Final verdict — who should read it
The Liar Among Us is for readers who like board-school mysteries with a heartbeat: those who enjoy atmospheric tension, morally complicated teens, and supernatural elements grounded in local myth. It’s a strong YA debut that brings a fresh voice and a distinct cultural perspective to a familiar genre. I finished it satisfied, slightly unsettled, and already thinking about which passages I’d return to
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