BOOK REVIEW: Truly Devious (Truly Devious, #1), by Maureen Johnson ~That was something different, that’s for sure. *SPOILER FREE*
~ Truly Devious (Truly Devious, #1), by Maureen Johnson
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Hello awesome nerds and happy Thursday everyone.
I feel like it’s been a long time since I last shared a book review with you, but that’s mostly because I haven’t been reading as much (and as fast) as I used to. Nonetheless, I finally finished the first instalment in the Truly Devious series and I thought I should share my thoughts and feelings about this book with you, because, truth be told, it was one of the most interesting books I’ve read in a while. And I’ll explain in a little bit why I said that.
For the time being though, let’s just get to the summary of the book…
“Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place” he said, “where learning is a game.”
Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym, Truly Devious. It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.
True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.”
To put this simply, this is probably one of the coolest summaries I’ve ever read. It intrigues you, it makes you picture in your mind’s eye everything that has already happened and is about to happen in this book. Most importantly though, it misleads you.
Oh, yeah… You read that right.
This summary gives so much away, while this new murder happens somewhere towards the MIDDLE of the book. Maybe the writer wanted to properly establish the world and maybe she wanted to make the connection between the past and the present, but whatever the case, the constant time jumps, in addition with the slow pacing and the too many, if you ask me, characters’ introductions straight from the beginning, made it very difficult for me to fully focus on the story. Not to mention that, for almost ten chapters, Stevie looked like a 12-year-old to me, thanks to the fact that, at the beginning of the book, it’s being mentioned that aside from Ellingham’s wife and daughter, a 12-year-old girl disappeared the exact same day they were kidnapped.
Maybe it’s because of the fact that I don’t normally read mystery novels, but I expected to feel more excited while reading this book. Yes, I loved the idea of this remote boarding school for the brightest and coolest, and yes, I loved the slightly gothic, mysterious atmosphere, and OF COURSE I loved the representation and diversity in this book, from the anxiety rep, to the LGBTQ+ mentions, but I think that was about it, at least for the first 200 pages.
If you guys think I spoiled the book for you, trust me, you can start reading the book at page 200 and get the whole picture regardless. And that is because that’s when the true story begins. The time jumps decrease in number, the pacing becomes faster and there’s actual thrill and passion and plot twists, but most importantly… there’s actual plot!
I get it that you get to know the setting and the characters before delving deeper into the story, but for me, it just took too much to get to the actual plot point. And not only that but, aside from Stevie, who reminds me so much of me and how I deal when facing panic attacks, Janelle, who’s the epitome of brightness and kindness, and David, who’s a really interesting and complex character, the rest of the characters, and believe me, there are so many of them, simply felt flat. There was no depth and not much of development throughout the entire book, that I felt that, even if they weren’t mentioned, there wouldn’t have been that much of a change in the book.
What I adored about this book, you may ask? The last 100 pages. And the ending! Gosh, that ending! If the entire book was as good as these last 100 pages were, I would’ve given a 10/5 star rating to this one.
Instead, I ended up rating Truly Devious with 3 out of 5 stars. In any other case, I wouldn’t bother reading the next book, based on a rating as such. But the ending was just…
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Have you guys read Truly Devious? Did you like it?
I look forward to reading your comments, thoughts and feelings about this one in the comment section down below, because i feel like I have an unpopular opinion, yet again.
Thank you all for being here once again. It means the world to me and I want you to know that I most certainly don’t take your presence for granted.
Till next time… Toodles!
