Maureen Johnson

After solving the case of Truly Devious, Stevie Bell investigates her first mystery outside of Ellingham Academy in this spine-chilling and hilarious stand-alone mystery from New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson. Amateur sleuth Stevie Bell needs a good murder. After catching a killer at her high school, she’s back at home for a normal (that means boring) summer. But then she gets a message from the owner of Sunny Pines, formerly known as Camp Wonder Falls—the site of the notorious unsolved case, the Box in the Woods Murders. Back in 1978, four camp counselors were killed in the woods outside of the town of Barlow Corners, their bodies left in a gruesome display. The new owner offers Stevie an invitation: Come to the camp and help him work on a true crime podcast about the case. Stevie agrees, as long as she can bring along her friends from Ellingham Academy. Nothing sounds better than a summer spent together, investigating old murders. But something evil still lurks in Barlow Corners. When Stevie opens the lid on this long-dormant case, she gets much more than she bargained for. The Box in the Woods will make room for more victims. This time, Stevie may not make it out alive. * Cosmopolitan Best YA Books of 2021 * People Magazine Best Books of Summer 2021*

The Box in the Woods

Sarin Booi

«This is why I love you," he said, "you murder-obsessed freak." Love? "Yeah," he said in response to the unvoiced question. "I just confessed, and I'm ready to do the time."

"Unless you have another plan," she said. Just making sure I was up to speed."

"No. You can't do that. Allison is dead." "So she won't care" she said.  

Give me your Computer." "Are you going to finish my book?" he said, pushing it over to her. "Because this is good news for me."

There are so many.." She looked around nervously.".. little kids." "At a summer camp? Holy shit, we need to tell someone about this"

 "I'm still going to eat a lot of tacos," Nate said. “But I'm going to do it judgmentally."

"He's creepier than you," Nate whispered to Stevie. "How does that make you feel?" "Honestly, pretty good," she replied.

"She's the head of the good times committee, huh?" Nate asked.

Sarah Sammis

As the flashbacks are only forty-four years back, compared to about eighty years from the Ellingham Academy ones, they blend more naturally with the present day story. It could also be that Johnson found better ways of making the two plots flow together through the practice of writing the previous three.

The other big difference here is that the mystery is self contained. It flows with a similar narrative punctuation as a typical cozy. Stevie as the amateur sleuth begins asking questions that have long since been buried by time and those old enough to remember the crime begin to get nervous. Some just don't want to revisit old painful memories. Some don't want the old hurt feelings back to threaten repaired friendships. And of course at least one person doesn't want to get caught. All this ill will results (as it always does) in a present day murder.

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Privileged	Uhoria	Railroad	00CC00

This book was so good however, I think it was quite slow-paced in comparison to the previous books. I loved the summer camp setting and the mystery was very intriguing and intense and Nate definitely made this book so much better .

Olivia 

Phinn

I like that it was very quick paced but you still got a good description of everything. Enjoyed the excerpts of real media Johnson infused in the book.

Nessa Luna

Hmm I feel like this book was just a bit repetitive... Not the best one in the serie, for sure.

(view spoiler)[It was mostly a book of Stevie running around talking to people who told her the exact same story (though some of it is important for the reveal in the end, but still) and then basically does nothing much aside from trying to sneak away to make out with David. Then she miraculously finds this diary and it reveals literally everything. Like sure that often happens in cases but it just felt a bit like a letdown. The whole Nazi plottwist was both weird and kind of interesting, though. (hide spoiler)]

jinni

2 stars all for my king nate who carried the entire book on his back. honestly, this book can’t hold a candle to book 1-3 of the series in terms of plot and character. can we also talk about the excruciatingly slow pacing of the book until the final few chapters?

Victoria

Huge fan of Nancy Drew books as a kid. So, of course, I know I’d enjoy this. Plus, I really liked the first three in the series.

It seemed good at first but it was really slow and then idk there was barely any build up for the end it just happened 

Really hoped I’d like this more than I did

Kat 

It seemed good at first but it was really slow and then idk there was barely any build up for the end it just happened 

Really hoped I’d like this more than I did

The Truly Devious series continues as Stevie Bell investigates her first mystery outside of Ellingham Academy in this spine-chilling and hilarious stand-alone mystery from New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson. Stevie Bell did it. She solved the greatest unsolved mystery of the century. So, what now? Figuring it all out--the truth behind Truly Devious and what exactly happened in the Ellingham Affair--has granted Stevie Bell a bit of celebrity in the true crime community. So she's not surprised when she gets an email from the man who owns Camp Bounty Lake (now called Camp Wonder Falls), the site of the infamous "Box in the Woods" murders from the 1970s. Weird things are happening at the camp again, although nothing as sinister as before. No murders, no bodies posed by the mysterious figure they called The Doll Collector. But there is a threatening message chalked across a wall. And a box has appeared, with three grisly dolls inside it. Stevie accepts a job as a camp counselor so she can figure out what's going on. She recruits her friends from Ellingham--Nate, Janelle, and Vi--to become counselors, too, and even Germaine Batt turns up. Not long after they arrive, the owner of the camp dies in a suspicious hiking accident. Once again, Stevie will have to solve a cold case from the past before a killer catches up with her in the present. --Bustle

Didn’t love this book as much as the first three but it was nice to return to the world and see Stevie back at it, solving the unsolvable. I felt like there was a lot of repetition in this book and by 200 pages I was surprised that not much had happened yet. But I was satisfied with the ending, as I hadn’t seen it coming at all.

Addie 🌻

amelia <3

taylor alyse pisanie

Emelie

4.5 owls. The ending was so anticlimactic hence no 5 owl rating.

riven

HOLY SHIT. i need another book. i need it. it’s a want AND a need. you’d think by book four in any series, you’d get bored. BUT NOT WITH THIS. the details is insane. the time and effort. maureen johnson keeps outdoing herself every single time. i. am. obsessed.

tish

Miranda Mendoza

I definitely enjoyed this book, but I did feel like it was slightly less satisfying as the other books in the series. Either way, it was a good book!

"Stevie Bell did it. She solved the greatest unsolved mystery of the century. So, what now? Figuring it all out-the truth behind Truly Devious and what exactly happened in the Ellingham Affair-has granted Stevie Bell a bit of celebrity in the true crime community. So she's not surprised when she gets an email from the man who owns Camp Bounty Lake (now called Camp Wonder Falls), the site of the infamous Box in the Woods murders from the 1970s. Weird things are happening at the camp again, although nothing as sinister as before. No murders, no bodies posed by the mysterious figure they called The Doll Collector. But there is a threatening message chalked across a wall. And a box has appeared, with three grisly dolls inside it. Stevie accepts a job as a camp counselor so she can figure out what's going on. She recruits her friends from Ellingham-Nate, Janelle, and Vi-to become counselors, too, and even Germaine Batt turns up. Not long after they arrive, the owner of the camp dies in a suspicious hiking accident. Once again, Stevie will have to solve a cold case from the past before a killer catches up with her in the present.

Juliet Sittler

Not bad, but I preferred the original trilogy

Delaney Woods 

this was fine… still entertaining but i feel like we don’t get many clues about the mystery throughout the book and then everything comes together suddenly at the end and it feels abrupt and out of nowhere. lots of nate content tho >>

Avery Baumel

MAUREEN JOHNSON FOOLED ME AGAIN I KEEP GETTING IT COMPLETELY WRONG. Through every Truly Devious book, I always think I have the answer and that Stevie will unravel all the little pieces and I get to share her moment. And then the culprit is someone completely different. This might be my favorite book in the series because it was a quick read that was engrossing, relatable, and kept me reading until late at night just to see what came next. So glad I picked this book up for a quick read while I was home because I absolutely loved it, as I usually do with Johnson's stories. Can't wait for more from her (maybe a Nate novella???? pls i'll do anything) and don't forget to pick up Truly Devious to read for yourself!

Holly

3.5 rounded up

I want to start by saying that I did enjoy this book, it had many things I should have enjoyed: the gang getting back together, an unsolved mystery, and a summer camp setting. But for some reason, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed.
I think part of it is that this mystery is a little bit simpler than the Truly Devious one--granted, that one took a trilogy to solve and had two mysteries going on at once. I also was surprised by the perpetrator, so I have no complaints about that. 

Also, I really enjoy how anxiety is depicted in these books; I think it's really great to see anxiety being portrayed realistically:)

I have never completely hated David, nor have I ever completely adored him. In the previous books especially, he was a jerk, but he also had some charisma/charm to him that made him entertaining when he wasn't being a said jerk. David isn't in this book much, and it seems as though he's lost some of that spunk that made him entertaining, but I have to give credit where credit is due and he is not a jerk in this book in my opinion. 

The bottom line is that I enjoyed this book, but I also felt a little bit disappointed by it as well.

sarah 

Meghan M

I enjoyed this fourth book in this series! I liked the fact that she learned and solved the mystery in one book, very Nancy Drew like and I loved it. The mystery and the new characters were all kind of annoying and I think David just needs to leave BUT Nate and Janelle supremacy :)

fun summer read (though take "summer" with a grain of salt, i live in the uk); it was light and breezy and still very interesting.

Kaitee Tredway

I was so happy to know there was another Stevie-book! (I started this one immediately after finishing Hand on the Wall.) I love my awkward, anxiety-prone, whipsmart and lovable detective. I gobbled up her newest adventure just as quickly as the last. And Nate secured his spot as a truly favorite sidekick. 

I really appreciated the pacing and tightness of this standalone. Unsolved, gruesome camp murder in a small town… such a different setting and circumstances for the gang. This story hit a different emotional note, not just from the setting, but from the fact that Stevie was trying to solve the murders of people’s friends and siblings. Everyone in the town of Barlow Corners knew these kids and had been haunted by this gruesome murder since 1978. There was an immediacy to this case because every time Stevie prodded, there was a human being there.

The reveal of the responsible parties felt very Agatha Christie — at least, what I’ve seen from movies and TV. I have yet to read a Christie. Working on that. Stevie delivered her answers to the town and to me, but I missed that I didn’t get to watch her actively solve the case. I missed that element a bit.

Still, I loved every minute of it and put the book down with a “wow.” This was another two-day read.

Mushroom

I loved the summer camp setting so much and I need to read more books with that!!

The Box in the Woods

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