I was so excited to get my hands on an eARC of the next installment in the Truly Devious series, Nine Liars. And maybe that was the problem, because it kind of fell flat for me.
Synopsis
Senior year at Ellingham Academy for Stevie Bell isn’t going well. Her boyfriend, David, is studying in London. Her friends are obsessed with college applications. With the cold case of the century solved, Stevie is adrift. There is nothing to distract her from the questions pinging around her brain—questions about college, love, and life in general.
Relief comes when David invites Stevie and her friends to join him for study abroad, and his new friend Izzy introduces her to a double-murder cold case. In 1995, nine friends from Cambridge University went to a country house and played a drunken game of hide-and-seek. Two were found in the woodshed the next day, murdered with an ax.
The case was assumed to be a burglary gone wrong, but one of the remaining seven saw something she can’t explain. This was no break-in. Someone’s lying about what happened in the woodshed.
Seven suspects. Two murders. One killer still playing a deadly game.
Thoughts
So far the Truly Devious series has been a solid 4 stars all around. Some I liked more than others, but overall they were good mysteries with solid friendships and typical young adult angst.
However, I struggled with Nine Liars almost from the get go. For the beginning few chapters, we go back and forth between the 1995 group and the current time with Stevie and her friends. This wasn’t unexpected, as (if I remember correctly), that’s the basic layout of the previous books. For this book though, the back and forth took me out of each storyline. I had a hard time getting refocused on the new timeline. The pacing seemed inconsistent which made it hard to stay engaged.
I know with YA there will always be a certain level of angst, and I’m usually good with most of it. They are seniors, so there was lots of discussion and anxiety over colleges – where to go, where to apply to, who is going where, etc. They were traveling to London, so there were travel issues and apprehension. The relationship between David/Stevie seemed exaggerated just for the drama of it all. It didn’t add to the story and actually took focus away a few times. Their conversations about sex were good see but that was about it.
I enjoyed the mystery and had no idea who did it. When Stevie finally got into the zone and pieces started falling into place, I thought ‘finally, here’s the Stevie Bell we know and love!. The end overall was very rushed. The mystery is solved and that’s it. We don’t know what consequences the suspect had, or what consequences Stevie had for making all those bad decisions throughout the book. She seemed to have no direction so an ending with nothing resolved may be appropriate. But it wasn’t satisfying. And that cliffhanger felt unnecessary and gimmicky. I closed the book feeling disappointed and a little angry, instead of proud of Stevie for another murder solved.
I will be picking up the next one – I want that cliffhanger resolved and to see how Stevie grows from this experience.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Nine Liars pub date is December 27, 2022.
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