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aimmyarrowshigh 's review for:
Nine Liars
by Maureen Johnson
While -- for me -- Nine Liars is not as strong a follow-up as The Box in the Woods, it's still a very well-crafted mystery and the characters continue to be strongly drawn. I think, though, that part of what makes Nine Liars feel weaker than TBitW for me is that Stevie seems to have regressed a bit in this book to a new type of girl-character and one that doesn't quite gel with who she's always been. For four books, Stevie has known exactly who she is, what she does, and why she does it: she is Stevie Bell and she solves murders. The shifted focus onto who is she *to David* and who is she *without her friends* feels like it should have been a younger, less experienced Stevie, not one who's had the experiences and successes she's had for the entire series. Generously, I can map that onto being a trauma response, I guess, and also it isn't UNrealistic for a high school senior to be freaking out about Big Changes Incoming. But it's not...
It's not the power fantasy of the Girl Detective to watch a teenage girl lack confidence in herself and her skills. Even at the nadir of the plot arc, the Girl Detective knows that she is smart and capable of doing what needs to be done, and I feel like SO MUCH of Stevie's focus in this book was weird David jealousy that it overtook her confidence in all other ways, too. Which is just... not fun to read.
Especially because David sucks.
It's not the power fantasy of the Girl Detective to watch a teenage girl lack confidence in herself and her skills. Even at the nadir of the plot arc, the Girl Detective knows that she is smart and capable of doing what needs to be done, and I feel like SO MUCH of Stevie's focus in this book was weird David jealousy that it overtook her confidence in all other ways, too. Which is just... not fun to read.
Especially because David sucks.