The person01–03
01·Who they are
Who is Simon Kelleher?
Simon Kelleher is Bayview High's most dangerous student not because he carries a weapon, but because he carries information. The creator and sole administrator of About That—a gossip app that operates like a confessional booth with a sniper's scope—Simon is a self-appointed arbiter of other people's hidden lives. He is sixteen, lacks friends by most measures, fascinated by true crime, and possesses a cold intelligence he has nowhere productive to direct. McManus keeps him offstage for the entire novel: he is dead before the first chapter ends, slumping over a water cup in detention while Bronwyn, Addy, Nate, and Cooper watch. Everything the reader knows about him arrives through flashbacks, hearsay, digital footprints, and the slow unraveling of a scheme he designed himself. This narrative distance makes him both pitiable and frightening—a character whose interiority can never be fully verified, only reconstructed.
His own attributed words capture his self-awareness and his deflection in equal measure. "I'm not a bad person. I've just done some bad things" gestures toward a conscience, but it is also the kind of statement someone makes when they have already decided their actions are justified.
02·Arc & motivation
What is Simon Kelleher's arc and motivation?
Simon's arc is paradoxically static: he is already dead. However, the novel reconstructs a trajectory of radicalization with disturbing clarity. He began as an isolated kid who found power in other people's secrets, building About That to matter—to be feared when he could not be liked. His friendship with Jake Riordan gave him the closest thing to belonging, making Jake's betrayal the wound that never healed. When Jake humiliated and discarded him, Simon did not grieve quietly. He engineered an elaborate suicide staged as murder, intending to frame four students for a crime that never happened and destroy them the way he felt destroyed.
His motivation is rooted in the logic of someone who has learned that vulnerability leads to exploitation. "People see what they want to see. They believe what they want to believe"—a line that reflects the operating principle of his entire scheme, relying on the school, the police, and the media rushing to convict the most convenient suspects.
03·Key moments
What are Simon Kelleher's key moments?
The detention scene (Chapter 1): Simon's death is the novel's ignition point. The deliberateness of his staging—EpiPens tampered with, water cups doctored, four specific students chosen as witnesses—only becomes clear in retrospect, but McManus plants enough unease to make re-reading the opening unsettling.
The About That posts (throughout): Simon's posthumous uploads, executed by Janae, keep his voice alive and his influence metastasizing. Each post functions as a dead man's hand, proof that his plan was designed to outlast him.
The revelation of the suicide plot (climax): The twist reframes every prior scene. Simon is not a victim in the conventional sense; he authored his own death as the ultimate act of control. This reveal forces the reader—and the four detainees—to hold two truths simultaneously: Simon was genuinely wronged, and Simon was genuinely dangerous.
The cast04–05
04·Relationships
What are Simon Kelleher's most important relationships?
Jake Riordan is the wound beneath everything. Simon trusted Jake as a real friend; Jake saw utility. Jake's decision to hijack Simon's plan to silence Addy is the darkest irony in the novel—the person Simon considered his closest ally became the one holding the gun, as Simon's own words foreshadow: "Sometimes the person you'd take a bullet for is the one holding the gun."
Janae Norman is the counterweight that saves Simon from being purely monstrous. Her grief is unperformed and total; she carries out his posthumous posts not for revenge but out of loyalty that outlasted his life. She demonstrates that Simon could inspire genuine love, which makes his choices all the more tragic.
The four detainees represent the architecture of high school social power Simon never accessed: the achiever (Bronwyn), the popular girl (Addy), the athlete with everything to lose (Cooper), and the bad-boy outsider (Nate). He targeted each at their most vulnerable point—Bronwyn's GPA, Addy's relationship, Cooper's sexuality, Nate's record—showing that his intelligence was real and his cruelty was precise.
05·Connected characters
How is Simon Kelleher connected to the other characters?
The evidence06
06·Key quotes
What are Simon Kelleher’s most famous quotes?
“People see what they want to see. They believe what they want to believe.”
Simon Kelleher · Bayview High — detention / early narrative context
Why it matters
This line is spoken by Simon Kelleher, the creator of the infamous gossip app at Bayview High, in Karen M. McManus's young adult mystery thriller One of Us Is Lying (2017). Simon delivers this cynical remark as he reflects on the culture of rumors, perceptions, and social biases that he has both taken advantage of and suffered from. The quote captures a key theme of the novel: that truth is distorted by personal desires and prejudices. Each of the four suspects—Bronwyn, Addy, Nate, and Cooper—faces judgment from their peers and the media based on stereotypes (the brain, the beauty, the bad boy, the jock) rather than real evidence. McManus uses this concept to explore how assumptions influence perceptions of guilt and innocence. Additionally, the line embodies dramatic irony: Simon is not exempt from this flaw, as his own intentions and manipulations lie hidden behind a crafted persona. In the end, the quote urges readers to reconsider their own quick judgments, serving as the thematic core of the entire novel.
“I'm not a bad person. I've just done some bad things.”
Simon Kelleher · Detention / revelation of Simon's motivations
Why it matters
This line is spoken by Simon Kelleher, the creator of the gossip app About That, in Karen M. McManus's young adult mystery novel One of Us Is Lying (2017). Simon delivers this self-justifying confession as the story reveals the truth behind his manipulative schemes — he intended to expose damaging secrets about his four classmates (Bronwyn, Addy, Nate, and Cooper) on the very day he dies in detention. The quote is crucial to the novel's exploration of moral complexity and self-deception. Simon positions himself as a victim of circumstance rather than the cause of others' suffering, illustrating how people justify harmful actions to maintain a positive self-image. McManus uses this moment to prompt readers to examine the line between character and action — are individuals defined by who they are, or by what they do? The quote also connects with the other four protagonists, each of whom harbors secrets and has made questionable choices, reinforcing the novel's core theme: everyone is capable of both good and bad, and no one is simply a villain or a hero.
“Sometimes the person you'd take a bullet for is the one holding the gun.”
Simon Kelleher · Referenced thematically throughout the novel; associated with Simon Kelleher's gossip app and the detention incident
Why it matters
This haunting line is from Karen M. McManus's debut YA thriller One of Us Is Lying (2017). It's spoken by Simon Kelleher, the creator of the school gossip app "About That," who is found dead in detention along with four other students — Bronwyn, Addy, Nate, and Cooper — each with a secret Simon was about to reveal. The line captures the novel's central theme of betrayal within close relationships: those we trust, love, or would sacrifice for can also be the ones who hurt us. It hints at the shocking truths behind Simon's death and pushes readers to question each character's loyalty and motives. Thematically, the quote reflects high school social dynamics — where friendships, romantic ties, and reputations become weapons — and parallels each protagonist's journey of realizing that someone in their circle isn't who they appear to be. This line resonates deeply, as it challenges our understanding of victimhood and complicity, prompting readers to reflect on how well we truly know the people closest to us.
Study07–08
07·Questions
Questions readers ask about Simon Kelleher
How does Simon Kelleher die in One of Us Is Lying?
Simon dies from an apparent anaphylactic reaction during detention, but the novel's twist reveals it was staged by Simon himself. He tampered with the EpiPens and doctored the water cups to fake a murder, deliberately framing the four other students in detention—Bronwyn, Addy, Nate, and Cooper—as suspects in a crime that was actually his own elaborate suicide.
Why did Simon Kelleher create the About That app?
Simon built About That to gain power and significance he could not achieve through normal social belonging. Isolated and friendless by most measures, he discovered that holding other people's secrets gave him the control and fear he craved. McManus frames the app as a direct expression of his powerlessness: when he could not be liked, he made himself dangerous instead.
What is Simon Kelleher's most famous quote?
"Sometimes the person you'd take a bullet for is the one holding the gun." This line is darkly prophetic: Simon's supposed best friend Jake Riordan, the person Simon most trusted, ultimately hijacked Simon's own revenge plot for his personal ends—becoming, in the most literal sense of Simon's metaphor, the one holding the gun.
What is Simon Kelleher's relationship with Jake Riordan?
Jake was Simon's closest friend and his most devastating betrayal. Simon trusted Jake as a genuine ally, but Jake exploited that friendship and manipulated Simon's resentment to his own advantage—using Simon's staged-death scheme as cover to silence Addy. Jake's treachery is the wound at the center of Simon's entire plan and the primary catalyst for his radicalization.
Who was Simon Kelleher's only real friend?
Janae Norman was Simon's sole true confidante and the person who genuinely loved him. She was complicit in his posthumous plan out of loyalty, continuing to post on About That after his death. Her unperformed grief is the emotional proof that Simon, despite his cruelty, was capable of inspiring real devotion—making his destructive choices all the more tragic.
What secrets did Simon plan to expose about Bronwyn, Addy, Nate, and Cooper?
Simon targeted each detainee at their most vulnerable point: Bronwyn's academic cheating, Addy's infidelity against Jake, Nate's drug dealing, and Cooper's sexuality—a revelation that could have ended his baseball career. The precision of these targets reveals Simon's genuine intelligence and the calculated cruelty with which he weaponized the most damaging truths he could find.
Is Simon Kelleher a villain or a victim in One of Us Is Lying?
McManus deliberately makes Simon both. He is a victim of genuine isolation, a broken friendship, and a high school culture that excluded him—circumstances that explain his bitterness. But he is also a perpetrator who designed a plan to destroy four people's lives as revenge. The novel forces readers to hold both truths at once without allowing Simon's suffering to excuse his choices.
What does Simon mean when he says "I'm not a bad person. I've just done some bad things"?
The line gestures toward self-awareness while simultaneously functioning as self-justification. Simon acknowledges wrongdoing but frames it as separate from his identity—the reasoning of someone who has already decided his actions are warranted. McManus uses it to illustrate how Simon's intelligence never fully translated into accountability, even as he recognized, on some level, the harm he was causing.
08·Essay angles
Use this in your essay
Tool · Essay angles