A review by samanthanleroy
The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson

3.0

2.5 rounded to 3. There's just something supremely entertaining about the Truly, Devious series, which is why I'm not upset about a spin-off. Usually, I get annoyed when authors tack on additional books to a series that has already reached a conclusion. But with this, I can't be mad. Maureen Johnson could definitely switch it up to be the Stevie Bell series a la Nancy Drew and I would eat it up. With that being said, however, the plotting of the mystery isn't the best. Johnson seemed to rely on the off-page realization trope in order to share breaks in the mystery instead of letting the reader solve the case alongside Stevie. Also, while I figured out who did it, the reason for why felt like it came out of nowhere and wasn't an entirely reasonable conclusion. Essentially, Stevie got lucky that her assumption was correct. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's not a very satisfying thing for a murder mystery.