Truly Devious

Publisher's Summary

New York Times best-selling author Maureen Johnson weaves a delicate tale of murder and mystery in the first book of a striking new series, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and E. Lockhart.

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early 20th 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.

The two interwoven mysteries of this first book in the Truly Devious series dovetail brilliantly, and Stevie Bell will continue her relentless quest for the murderers in books two and three.

©2018 HarperCollins Publishers (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

Thoroughly Enjoyable Story with Awful Narration

What did you love best about Truly Devious?

WARNING TO ANY PROSPECTIVE READERS: Although I loved this book, it ends on a really obnoxious cliffhanger and almost nothing gets resolved.

But it's saying something that, despite that, I still really enjoyed it. I should've known going in after reading quite a few of Johnson's books that it wouldn't give me closure (pretty sure Suite Scarlett is NEVER going to have a third book) but after how disappointingly boring I found her book "The Name of the Star", especially for its cop-out explanation to the 'mystery' being GHOSTS ARE REAL instead of... a real mystery, I really enjoyed this story.

It's still not grounded in anything close to the reality you and I know, but that works for it. Eccentric millionaires and long-past murder mysteries that interweive with the present are far-fetched, but Johnson makes it believable enough to work. It is really obnoxious that basically nothing is solved by the end... but I guess that's one way to make us look out for book 2.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Truly Devious?

I loved the characters. Stevie was a pretty enjoyable protagonist - just weird and antisocial enough to avoid being bland but not too much that she was actually unlikable. As usual, Johnson handles the little love interest subplot very well. I thought Janelle could have used more development, but maybe she will get it in following books.

How could the performance have been better?

This may be the first time I found an audible narrator so distracting I almost couldn't go on with the story. Her annunciation is just so... off. She over pronounces the "t's" and ends of words. Weirdly, her voices she does for boys sound perfectly natural, but her usual narration for anything but dialogue (i.e. most of the book) is so grating and unnatural. It's almost like she's trying to do an impression of a vampire or something? It was just SO distracting! Plus, you can tell Johnson is a pretty funny writer, even in this book (I know she is from her other ones) but this narrator just can't seem to deliver her writing in any comedic way. Her timing is so off.

I really hope for the second book they get a new narrator.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I had EXTREME frustration at the ending, but the last hour or so made my heart race a little bit. For a YA book, that's pretty damn good.

8 of 9 people found this review helpful

Bad Ending

Enjoyed the story but the Ending! Leads you to and then down the Rabbit Hole with no ending in site (unless you buy book 2). Hate books like this that employ this marketing tool.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Mystery Books Need Endings

Beginning, middle, end. Key elements to a story. Even a bad story.

The writing in this book is enjoyable, the characters are interesting, the pacing is great. Until it's not. The book is a mystery and everything leads up to the climax perfectly. The ending is so close, it seems it's going to wrap up nicely... and then it ends before there is ANY resolution. I understand that it's a series. I even get that a cliffhanger is a nice way to end a book in a series. When you string a reader along in a mystery, however, you'd better deliver the killer by the end of the book. The series can go on, more murders with the same characters, but RESOLVE THE ORIGINAL INCIDENT FIRST! Dragging things out for three books may work in other genres, but mystery readers generally expect ENDINGS to every volume.

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

Different narrator next time

Overall I liked this story but the narrator drove me NUTS! The are quite a few different male characters and she had the same voice for all of them.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Good

I liked the story.

I didn’t like the narrator though. All of her male voices were so goofy and the same.

I loved the 1930s part of the story most.

Bummed with the cliff hanger ending.

Hated all (well, most) of the names in the book. So many were so tacky, but whatever, not a huge deal.

Great story not great narration

The story on this is great, however it does end in a cliffhanger leading into a second book. The problem I had here was with the narrator Kate Rudd. Her voice during most third person narration is coming in soothing, sometimes a little monotone but in a way that makes reading or in this case listening pretty pleasurable. The disconnect comes when she tries to do character voices in this case there were several male characters most of whom sounded exactly the same and so as a casual listener I was constantly asking who said what not being able to tell the difference between most of the male characters.

overall nice book

i really enjoyed the plot of this book and i was so engrossed in the storyline i read it in two days, but there were some problems i had with it. i usually don’t mind if a book leaves some situations open ended, but this book gave little ending. i would’ve liked to see a completed story leaving me with one or two questions rather than see one mystery throughout a trilogy. i also think the character development wasn’t great, and we could’ve got a lot more from them. on the other hand the mystery was great and i couldn’t put it down. i liked that the main character, stevie, had a love interest but it wasn’t overpowering and taking over the main plot. also, the representation in this book it amazing! i love when an author represents poc or the lgbt community, and Maureen Johnson really did a great job!

No conclusion, ends with "to be continued".

Neither mystery is solved by the end of the story. In fact that author introduces yet another mystery into the mix. If your looking for a conclusion to the wonderfully begun mystery at the start of the book, you'll be disappointed.

Stevie is obnoxious. I suppose this is because she's "gifted" but I just find her grating and not endearing int eh least. The fact that she looks down on her parents is also irritating. Yes I know the stereotype is for teenager to not think much of her parents but Stevie acts like a bratty three-year-old at times.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Great Story

Great mystery, but all of the male characters sounded too similar to me. It was tough to distinguish which character was speaking.

Brilliant YA mystery. I absolutely loved it.

Rich setting and characters, truly puzzling mysteries and riddles, and a perfectly balanced treatment of adolescence along the way.

2 of 4 people found this review helpful

Bad Narration

I loved everything about the book the biggest let down was the narration. The narrator is robotic it’s like listening to siri read! The only thing that kept me listening is the story line. I’ll buy the next book cause I don’t think I can manage listening to her voice any longer.

Brilliant story, awful narration

The story is brilliant, definitely worth the hype it received, but the narration is awful! Very much like Siri but with a little more emotion. At times it was fine, but so much of it was read in a robotic staccato drone. It was very off putting and stopped me getting carried away in the story.

Did not finish

It was so boring and the story lost interest real fast. I did not manage to finish it, maybe i just wasn't in the mood to listen to this book. I tried to come back to this audiobook but it felt like a chore so I ended up not finishing it.