The Box in the Woods

this is why i need to learn how to swim

3.5 for this one. I love natee

fun

4.5, would have been 4 but the twist was a good one.

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. http://pussreboots.com/blog/2021/comm... 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 .

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.

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)]

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?

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

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.

Rlly good, loved it

now what.

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

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.

amo uma farofa!!! o plot twist 😱🤯

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!

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 >>

i think maybe i'm a mystery person

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!

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.

4.5*