Maureen Johnson

Death at Morning House

esme villanueva

shiya

If you loved the allure of the first book in the Truly Devious series, this book is the one to bring you back to that enchantment. I have to admit, Nine Liars was extremely disappointing for me, and felt like it lost some of the charm of the series, but Death at Morning House reminded me how fun Maureen Johnson's books truly are. The dual mystery unraveling at the same time, the misdirections, and the scattered clues are truly at their peak here, and I had such a good time reading this one. While many of Johnson's tropes and plot points can, of course, be formulaic and repetitive (as fiction tends to be, especially in a genre like this), this stand-alone does what it needs to do in terms of setting up and solving the mystery and taking us along for the ride. I particularly loved the narrator, Marlowe, in this book, and loved that while she may not be as intense about her mystery-solving as Stevie Bell, she encapsulates much of the true awkward teenage experience that lends itself to young adult fiction and to having a piece of reality (I mean, she accidentally started a fire on a first date) for young adult readers. This was a great quick, fun, summer mystery read and I hope Johnson takes this energy back to the Truly Devious series whenever she returns to it!

Death at Morning House

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