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gggina13 's review for:
Nine Liars
by Maureen Johnson
4.5 probably, trying not to let my personal opinions bring down this book lmaooo
Stevie and the gang are in a transitional period. Janelle, Vi, and Nate are looking at colleges. Stevie should be too but she cannot manage to do anything about college applications or even apply herself in regular school. She feels a little lost in regards to her future, and she's really missing David, who's living in London and going to school there.
So when David invites the group to come study abroad in London for a week, it rejuvenates Stevie. It's a way to look like she's putting in effort at school while also spending time with David. Plus she gets to go to London.
It starts off great - Stevie and David being couply and touristy, her best friends with her, a week pretty much unsupervised (other than her headmaster who has pretty much said she can call at any minute and expects the kids to be following their itinerary any time they speak to her)
Until the group meets David's classmate Izzy who tells them about, you guessed it, an unsolved murder.
The murder took place in 1995, and as you're reading the lead-in of Stevie's story this go round, there are chapters about the murder circumstances as well. A group of 9 friends went to a country mansion after graduation to celebrate, and basically not everybody made it home. Izzy's aunt Angela was one of the friends in the group, and has let it spill to her niece while on painkillers that she thinks the murders were intentional, caused by one of the 9.
People who are not fans of realism in their YA will not like this story, as they probably have not liked the other installments. Stevie can be frustrating because she's realistic. She has insecurities about her relationship, WHICH MAKE SENSE because they're two teenagers living across the world from each other, and she confronts David about them. Her worries about the situation are compounded when David seems to spend a lot of time with Izzy.
But, it might be because Izzy's aunt goes missing after the gang chatted with her about the 1995 deaths. And now Izzy wants Stevie to help find her aunt and potentially also figure out what happened in 1995 too.
Stevie has insecurities about sex (mainly the lack of having had it), insecurities about her outfits, about her talents, basically about everything. She's seeing the people around her get ready for college, or in David's case, already be in college, and she just can't seem to pin down what kind of person she is and what she wants. It's interesting, because it's not the plot of this book like some contemporaries, it's just part of Stevie's story, and that means it doesn't have a conclusion with a pretty bow on it at the end like it would if it was the bulk of the story. It's hard to read just being a person who is very attached to Stevie, and people who claim to not like YA probably would think it was hard to read because it shows an unsure character who makes somewhat bad decisions sometimes. Personally I think it's the kind of thing that will resonate with kids, shit, it resonates with me as a full grown adult. Seeing people have goals, ambitions, and dreams can be really othering when you just aren't wired to have that.
There's almost a parallel between the murder story and Stevie's story. The group of 9 friends were graduating college and about to begin their separate lives for the first time in years, with the week at the country mansion being their last hurrah. Stevie's group is going to be graduating high school, but they also will be splitting up assumedly.
Stevie also is very moony over David, which her friends are simultaneously annoyed by and think is cute. It seems a little out of character, at first, for her to be basing so much of her well-being around a boy, but you have to remember she is going through a life crisis and also she hasn't seen him in months and he lives across the actual world. She deserves a little grace when it comes to being boy-crazy
Janelle is dealing with picking a college - she and Vi want to go to school in the same vicinity as one another even though they may not want to go to the same school. She seems more on board about choosing than Vi by the end of the book, which is a little curious. Nate is being weird, as usual, and has finally been doing a lot of writing, and it's in this book that he tells Stevie that he's asexual, which was a really really sweet moment. Nate also seems to be very low on money which alarms Stevie. David is acting carefree as usual, but he's dealing with issues with his father as usual and he also just feels like he isn't quite as special as anyone else in the group. Basically, everybody has something going on that fleshes them out in the story as usual and just makes you care about the characters so much.
I can't say I guessed the ending to the mystery - I did not really have a guess, but Stevie solved the hell out of it, and I was very glad to see she did her signature Holmes-esque reveal in front of a crowd. I am growing to bank on these moments in the books so I hope it continues as long as the series does.
The very ending of this book, which is tied to a part that happens a little earlier, is one of the worst things that has ever happened to me!!!! I read the last few paragraphs out loud to my fiance and he was literally like "oh my god I feel so bad for you" lmao SOS, it's definitely something I can not talk about until ya'll read this, but I swear to god if we do not get a sixth book you will have to call the swat team, the fbi, the cia, the united states marshals, the navy seals, the fire squad, and our lord and savior jesus christ to hold me back from completely going feral and ruining this nation
Stevie and the gang are in a transitional period. Janelle, Vi, and Nate are looking at colleges. Stevie should be too but she cannot manage to do anything about college applications or even apply herself in regular school. She feels a little lost in regards to her future, and she's really missing David, who's living in London and going to school there.
So when David invites the group to come study abroad in London for a week, it rejuvenates Stevie. It's a way to look like she's putting in effort at school while also spending time with David. Plus she gets to go to London.
It starts off great - Stevie and David being couply and touristy, her best friends with her, a week pretty much unsupervised (other than her headmaster who has pretty much said she can call at any minute and expects the kids to be following their itinerary any time they speak to her)
Until the group meets David's classmate Izzy who tells them about, you guessed it, an unsolved murder.
The murder took place in 1995, and as you're reading the lead-in of Stevie's story this go round, there are chapters about the murder circumstances as well. A group of 9 friends went to a country mansion after graduation to celebrate, and basically not everybody made it home. Izzy's aunt Angela was one of the friends in the group, and has let it spill to her niece while on painkillers that she thinks the murders were intentional, caused by one of the 9.
People who are not fans of realism in their YA will not like this story, as they probably have not liked the other installments. Stevie can be frustrating because she's realistic. She has insecurities about her relationship, WHICH MAKE SENSE because they're two teenagers living across the world from each other, and she confronts David about them. Her worries about the situation are compounded when David seems to spend a lot of time with Izzy.
But, it might be because Izzy's aunt goes missing after the gang chatted with her about the 1995 deaths. And now Izzy wants Stevie to help find her aunt and potentially also figure out what happened in 1995 too.
Stevie has insecurities about sex (mainly the lack of having had it), insecurities about her outfits, about her talents, basically about everything. She's seeing the people around her get ready for college, or in David's case, already be in college, and she just can't seem to pin down what kind of person she is and what she wants. It's interesting, because it's not the plot of this book like some contemporaries, it's just part of Stevie's story, and that means it doesn't have a conclusion with a pretty bow on it at the end like it would if it was the bulk of the story. It's hard to read just being a person who is very attached to Stevie, and people who claim to not like YA probably would think it was hard to read because it shows an unsure character who makes somewhat bad decisions sometimes. Personally I think it's the kind of thing that will resonate with kids, shit, it resonates with me as a full grown adult. Seeing people have goals, ambitions, and dreams can be really othering when you just aren't wired to have that.
There's almost a parallel between the murder story and Stevie's story. The group of 9 friends were graduating college and about to begin their separate lives for the first time in years, with the week at the country mansion being their last hurrah. Stevie's group is going to be graduating high school, but they also will be splitting up assumedly.
Stevie also is very moony over David, which her friends are simultaneously annoyed by and think is cute. It seems a little out of character, at first, for her to be basing so much of her well-being around a boy, but you have to remember she is going through a life crisis and also she hasn't seen him in months and he lives across the actual world. She deserves a little grace when it comes to being boy-crazy
Janelle is dealing with picking a college - she and Vi want to go to school in the same vicinity as one another even though they may not want to go to the same school. She seems more on board about choosing than Vi by the end of the book, which is a little curious. Nate is being weird, as usual, and has finally been doing a lot of writing, and it's in this book that he tells Stevie that he's asexual, which was a really really sweet moment. Nate also seems to be very low on money which alarms Stevie. David is acting carefree as usual, but he's dealing with issues with his father as usual and he also just feels like he isn't quite as special as anyone else in the group. Basically, everybody has something going on that fleshes them out in the story as usual and just makes you care about the characters so much.
I can't say I guessed the ending to the mystery - I did not really have a guess, but Stevie solved the hell out of it, and I was very glad to see she did her signature Holmes-esque reveal in front of a crowd. I am growing to bank on these moments in the books so I hope it continues as long as the series does.
The very ending of this book, which is tied to a part that happens a little earlier, is one of the worst things that has ever happened to me!!!! I read the last few paragraphs out loud to my fiance and he was literally like "oh my god I feel so bad for you" lmao SOS, it's definitely something I can not talk about until ya'll read this, but I swear to god if we do not get a sixth book you will have to call the swat team, the fbi, the cia, the united states marshals, the navy seals, the fire squad, and our lord and savior jesus christ to hold me back from completely going feral and ruining this nation