Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - Truly, Devious

When Stevie Bell is accepted into Ellingham Academy, a school for gifted students, she thinks it's the chance of a lifetime to solve the 'Truly Devious' murders. What she doesn't anticipate is a classmate turning up dead. Was it an accident, or has there been another murder on the property all these years later?

I ate up the setting of this book. Ellingham Academy would have been my dream school at this age and I loved all of the different personalities of the characters. It could be over the top at times, but that's to be expected in a YA book. That was part of the fun, too. It's also the definition of a page-turner. As soon as I got to the end I had to start The Vanishing Stair.

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laurenevlyn's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I enjoyed this book reasonably well. It was very slow to pick up and I did manage to predict a good amount of the twists. Nevertheless, I’m excited to see what happens in the rest of the series.

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leahrnorris's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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dinipandareads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

WTF WAS THAT CLIFFHANGER ENDING?!
The second book needs to be read ASAP!

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slimepuppy's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I'd heard great things about this book, so to say I came in with high expectations would be an understatement. However, even though it was a quick and flowy read, I could not ignore the many problems I had with it, despite knowing it was meant for an younger audience.

- main character, despite being an avid true crime fan, dreams to be a cop. cops, famously known among true crime fans to be useless, corrupt and uncaring of victims. Stevie doesn't even point this out, or make some bullshit statement about wanting to be "one of the good ones", the law enforcement is portrayed as being one hundred percent effective and great

- boring romance with a character that spends the majority of the book being annoying to Stevie for no good reason... and that's about it for his character. one moment they're fighting, the other they're rolling around on the floor making out. why? he hasn't shown a single redeeming quality other than being attractive

- no actual sleuthing or investigating is done by the main character for over HALF THE BOOK. even then, Stevie doesn't do any investigating about the Ellingham case, the main thing that made me want to read this book in the first place

- the main mystery is too old. none of the people affected by it are alive. we don't even hear about offspring or any descendant who might care about seeing the mystery be solved. who cares if Stevie cracks the case? everyone who could find peace from it being solved is long gone.

- the culprit of The main is mystery is painfully obvious from the moment he shows up on the page. I searched for some spoilers out of curiosity to know if my guess was right, and voilà, I even guessed the motive right. does this mean I'm a genius and I get to go to a fancy school in the middle of nowhere? no, it just means the mystery is predictable.

despite all this, the writing is well done, (most of) the characters are cute, and it be could a great read for someone younger as an introduction to mystery stories.

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lqvekanej's review against another edition

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challenging dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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akirokis's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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