67. The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson

#3 Truly Devious
Listened to Audio on Libby, borrowed from Bosler
narrated by Kate Rudd
Unabridged audio (8:36)
2020 Katherine Tegen Books
369 pgs.
YA Mystery
Finished 4/23/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.23 - 18,193 ratings
My rating: 3.5
Setting: 1936 and contemporary Vermont boarding school, winter

First line/s:  "The snow had been falling for hours, drifting past the windows, settling on the sill, following little landscapes that mimicked the mountains in the distance. Albert Ellingham sat on an overstuffed chair covered in plum-colored velvet."

My comments:  This third and final installment in an ongoing mystery nicely wrapped up any questions about the two murder mysteries, 1936 and current time, in a satisfying way.  This whole three-book-series was a little too drawn out, I'm sure it could've been condensed satisfactorily, but both books one and two were left with big cliffhangers and that couldn't have been done if this was made into one very long book.  I had to keep forcing myself to go back to listen, even though I did want to find out what the outcome was.  The 1936 - 1938 parts weren't half as interesting to me as the contemporary bits, but no matter.  I didn't really like the narrator's voice for the protagonist, not enough inflection to flat, which changed my perception of her personality.

Goodreads synopsis:  Ellingham Academy must be cursed. Three people are now dead. One, a victim of either a prank gone wrong or a murder. Another, dead by misadventure. And now, an accident in Burlington has claimed another life. All three in the wrong place at the wrong time. All at the exact moment of Stevie’s greatest triumph . . .
          She knows who Truly Devious is. She’s solved it. The greatest case of the century.
          At least, she thinks she has. With this latest tragedy, it’s hard to concentrate on the past. Not only has someone died in town, but David disappeared of his own free will and is up to something. Stevie is sure that somehow—somehow—all these things connect. The three deaths in the present. The deaths in the past. The missing Alice Ellingham and the missing David Eastman. Somewhere in this place of riddles and puzzles there must be answers.
          Then another accident occurs as a massive storm heads toward Vermont. This is too much for the parents and administrators. Ellingham Academy is evacuated. Obviously, it’s time for Stevie to do something stupid. It’s time to stay on the mountain and face the storm—and a murderer.
          In the tantalizing finale to the Truly Devious trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson expertly tangles her dual narrative threads and ignites an explosive end for all who’ve walked through Ellingham Academy.
          New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson delivers the witty and pulse-pounding conclusion to the Truly Devious series as Stevie Bell solves the mystery that has haunted Ellingham Academy for over 75 years.

69. Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl

listened on Audio, borrowed from CCLS
read by Phoebe Strole (beautifully!)
Unabridged audio (8:47)
2018 Listening Library, (Delacorte Press)
328 pgs.
YA Mystery/Fantasy
Finished 7/27/2019
Goodreads rating: 3.79 - 9103 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Rhode Island

First line/s:  "I hadn't spoken to Whitley Lansing -- or any of them -- in over a year."

My comments:  Just when I thought it was getting a bit too repetitious (a huge part of the story, actually), Pessl would change it up.  So many surprises that I didn't see coming!  Superlative storytelling with an interesting cast of characters, none of whom are particularly likable....  Strong setting in Rhode Island, at a rich mansion and a snazzy private school, everything works together really well and leaves you with all sorts of delicious questions, questions that you have to come to terms with within yourself.  Really cool read!

Goodreads synopsis:  Once upon a time, back at Darrow-Harker School, Beatrice Hartley and her five best friends were the cool kids, the beautiful ones. Then the shocking death of Jim - their creative genius and Beatrice's boyfriend - changed everything.
          One year after graduation, Beatrice is returning to Wincroft - the seaside estate where they spent so many nights sharing secrets, crushes, plans to change the world - hoping she'll get to the bottom of the dark questions gnawing at her about Jim's death.
          But as the night plays out in a haze of stilted jokes and unfathomable silence, Beatrice senses she's never going to know what really happened. 
          Then a mysterious man knocks on the door. Blithely, he announces the impossible: time for them has become stuck, snagged on a splinter that can only be removed if the former friends make the harshest of decisions. 
          Now Beatrice has one last shot at answers... and at life.

21. The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson

#2 Truly Devious Trilogy
Listened on Audio
Read by Kate Rudd
Unabridged audio (9:13)
2019 Katherine Tegen Books
384 pgs.
YA Mystery
Finished 2/24/2019
Goodreads rating:  4.36- 3966 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Vermont With Flashbacks to 1930s

First line/s: " 'Has anyone seen Dottie?' Miss Nelson asked"

My comments: I remember being extremely frustrated after finishing the first book because it left everything so incredibly up in the air. I think I feel even more frustrated after just now finishing this second installment. So unsatisfying! Decent mystery, especially since it’s YA and a good YA mystery is a bit unusual. I listened to this one and enjoyed all the “voices“ that Kate Rudd used except for that of Stevie, the protagonist. For some reason she used a very flat and expressionless tone for her, which didn’t suit the character at all....so that too was disappointing. A year to wait before the sequel comes out. I think I will include, below, a brief outline of the story and characters so that I can refresh my memory before reading book number three!

Goodreads synopsis:  All Stevie Bell wanted was to find the key to the Ellingham mystery, but instead she found her classmate dead. And while she solved that murder, the crimes of the past are still waiting in the dark. Just as Stevie feels she’s on the cusp of putting it together, her parents pull her out of Ellingham academy.
          For her own safety they say. She must move past this obsession with crime. Now that Stevie’s away from the school of topiaries and secret tunnels, and her strange and endearing friends, she begins to feel disconnected from the rest of the world. At least she won’t have to see David anymore. David, who she kissed. David, who lied to her about his identity—son of despised politician Edward King. Then King himself arrives at her house to offer a deal: He will bring Stevie back to Ellingham immediately. In return, she must play nice with David. King is in the midst of a campaign and can’t afford his son stirring up trouble. If Stevie’s at school, David will stay put.
          The tantalizing riddles behind the Ellingham murders are still waiting to be unraveled, and Stevie knows she’s so close. But the path to the truth has more twists and turns than she can imagine—and moving forward involves hurting someone she cares for. In New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson’s second novel of the Truly Devious series, nothing is free, and someone will pay for the truth with their life.

96. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

#1 Raven Cycle
listened on Audible
2012 Scholastic
409 pgs.
YA Fantasy
Finished 11/14/2018
Goodreads rating:  4.06 - 198,743 ratings
My rating:  5
Setting:  Contemporary Henrietta, Virginia

First line/s:  "Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she'd been told that she would kill her true love."

My comments:  Read on the drive home from Maine, through actual sleet and snow and rain and it was the perfect book to listen to on this particularly arduous journey, lol.  It was so good.  I loved the elements of magic, the otherwordly "stuff" that become reality.  I have really good pictures in my mind of the four boys, but the picture of Blue, the female protagonist, is hazier.  I really hope I get more insight into her in the next books - which I hope I can get my hands on asap!

Goodreads synopsis:  “There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”
          It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.
          Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.
          His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.
          But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.
          For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.
          From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

10. Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

Truly Devious #1
listened to on Audible
2018 Harper Collins
432 pgs.
YA CRF/HF Time Flipping back and forth
Finished 1/22/2018
Goodreads rating: 4.16 - 838 ratings
My rating:  4.5
Setting:  Contemporary middle-of-nowhere Vermont

First line/s:  "Fate came for Dottie Epstein a year earlier, in the form of a call to the principal's office."

My comments:  Terribly mixed feelings about this book.  The ending drove me nuts, though I must admit I had a little bit of a clue about one part of it.  Some of the story dragged a bit, but it was a good mystery, and it was time for a good mystery.  At first I wasn't really sure whether I liked the protagonist, Stevie, but she grew on me.  I liked her uncertainty and her quirkiness and her totally obsessive love for crime-solving.  I loved her quick comebacks and her snoopiness - even though she didn't want to be snoopy she felt she had to be and couldn't stop herself.  More and more she felt like a real person to me.  She supposedly had anxiety, but that didn't really work for me.  And the ending did piss me off - I didn't know this was not a standalone.  Note to self:  it'll be awhile before the second book in the series comes out, so I need to make sure I either re-read this or read a really thorough summary of it before I read the next.

Goodreads synopsis: New York Times bestselling 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 twentieth 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.

10. The Paladin Prophecy - Mark Frost

#1 Paladin Prophecy
2012, Random House
550 pages
Goodreads rating: 4.13
cag rating:  5/A really great yarn

1st sentence:  "The Importance of an Orderly Mind.  Will West began each day with that thought even before he opened his eyes.  When he did open them, the same words greeted him on a banner across his bedroom wall:  #1: THE IMPORTANCE OF AN ORDERLY MIND."

My comments:  I was hooked on this story almost immediately.  It had many things going for it, and those that didn't failed to bother me in any way.  Characterization - excellent.  Plot - exciting (I just ignored anything too implausible or that I couldn't quite fathom because the rest of the story line was super) with enough adventure and mystery to keep the reader guessing and interested. Setting - really well defined and shown. Excitement scale - pretty high, especially for a  young adult.   A great mixture of realistic and scifi/fantasy with a lot of technology and imagination included.  I have three or four 4th graders that will really love this story....can't wait to read number two!

Goodreads:  Will West is careful to live life under the radar. At his parents' insistence, he's made sure to get mediocre grades and to stay in the middle of the pack on his cross-country team. Then Will slips up, accidentally scoring off the charts on a nationwide exam.
          Now Will is being courted by an exclusive prep school . . . and is being followed by men driving black sedans. When Will suddenly loses his parents, he must flee to the school. There he begins to explore all that he's capable of--physical and mental feats that should be impossible--and learns that his abilities are connected to a struggle between titanic forces that has lasted for millennia.
          Co-creator of the groundbreaking television series Twin Peaks, Mark Frost brings his unique vision to this sophisticated adventure, which combines mystery, heart-pounding action, and the supernatural.

7. Jellicoe Road - Melina Marchetta

2006 Australia, 2008 USA, HarperTeen
419 pages
YA
Rating:  Awesome/5
Michael L. Printz Award

Setting:  Australia, somewhere in the Sydney vicinity.
OSS:  A 17-year-old orphan, still yearning for the mother who abandoned her, traces all sorts of secrets that ultimately lead to her own future.
1st sentence/s:  "My father took 132 minutes to die."

There are reviews of this book all over the web, mine would never do it justice. It was everything I look for in a perfect novel.  A seamless, well-plotted storyline; lovely writing; characters that become real, they're so well written, and a mystery.

Taylor Markham has little memory of her growing-up years with her drug-addicted mother, she only knows that she was abandoned at 11 and sent to a boarding school on the Jellicoe Road.  The only adult in her life since that time has been a woman named  Hannah, who works at the school but lives in a house on the riverside, quite close by.  And now it is Taylor's last year, and for six weeks a school ritual is about to begin - "wars" between the townies, the school, and the Cadets who come each year to camp and live in the wild.  From the lives and memories of five close friends 18 years previously, to the lives of five who will end up being close friends in the future, I am left to ponder love and family, grief and forgiveness, secrets and honesty.  Wow.  what a book.

The last line of the blurb on the jacket is what made me begin this book (finally): " If Taylor can put together the pieces of her past, she might just be able to change her future."

Oh, how many times I've taken this out of the library and returned it without beginning.  And to think I almost didn't read it this time, either.  What a shame.  This book is bound to be a favorite.  Incredible story-weaving, and gorgeous word-weaving.

55. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks - E. Lockhart

For: Young Adults
Published: March, 2008
352 pgs.
Rating: 4/5
Finished: Oct. 30, 2008
2009 Printz Honor

This is a SMART book for young adults. It has feminist overtones, and makes you think.

Frankie Landau-Banks has "blossomed" in the summer between her freshman and sophomore years at Alabaster, an elite private school in northern Massachusetts. Really blossomed. She snags the attention of Matthew Livingston, the cutest and most popular senior, and he quickly becomes her boyfriend. She loves hanging out with his crowd, but when she discovers that he is part of a 50 year-old secret society that is ONLY for boys, something is awakened in her, and she comes up with a brilliant plan to make Matthew notice her for more than her body and her cuteness.

Frankie becomes the mastermind behind all sorts of plots that befuddle the administration, but she does it secretly by pretending, online, that's she's part of the Loyal Society of the Bassett Hounds. "Alpha", Matthew's best friend and the "alpha" leader, takes all the credit. But when Frankie is found out, her plans to impress Matthew with her brains backfire.

The relationship between Frankie and Matthew is not developed enough for me. What in heaven's name does she see in him? She is clever, very smart (she even reads Wodehouse!), and quite a feminist. I could believe how she'd become infatuated with Matthew, but I couldn't believe that it would last very long. She's not superficial, and he is. It was a mesmerizing read, though. Once she began planning her escapades it was fun to watch them all play out.