Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

2 reviews

katsbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

“You have to take things as they are, not how you hear they're supposed to be.”

“When you have enough power and money, you can dictate the meanings of words.”

“There is nothing so serious as a game.”

This was a really fun mystery. I really enjoyed Stevie as a main character. She was funny and relatable and that made the story compelling. I loved the setting. The school was really well written and described. However, I found myself more intrigued by the 1936 timeline. The major mystery in the present day timeline got pretty juicy near the end but suffered from all the time spent introducing the secondary characters and setting for the first 200 pages or so. I appreciated having a large pool of suspects and minor characters but the first half of the book definitely felt like set ups for the rest of the series. I'm not really sure how that could have been rectified but I was drawn in enough to want to read the rest of the series, for sure. 

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emily_mh's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

The first thing I will say about this one is that it had really, really weird pacing. The best way to describe it is that it felt like one big set-up for the next book, as nothing was really solved or fully investigated. That being said, I really enjoyed reading this. It had so many of my favourite elements: secret tunnels, an isolated boarding school, hidden spaces, and a cold case. Also, Johnson described what Stevie was thinking and feeling really well, so that she felt like an actual person. I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

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