Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson

9 reviews

rubyl28's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Alcoholism, Death, Drug use, and Grief

bella_cavicchi's review

funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I love the Truly Devious series. The books don't always hit the mark, but I don't really mind. Give me teen detectives solving cold cases! Why not! That said, I felt that the murder of the 90s far surpassed the present-day narrative here, and so my one complaint (if big) is that I wanted to spend the whole book in the Nine's company. It may also be my Cambridge/London bias...

A delight to devour all the same.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Blood, Murder, Violence, Death, Sexual content, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Infidelity, Alcohol, Addiction, and Medical content

guessgreenleaf's review

adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Blood, Alcohol, Addiction, Infidelity, Murder, and Panic attacks/disorders

callidoralblack's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Grief, Death, and Violence

Minor: Suicide, Abandonment, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Murder

tori2629's review

funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

The 5th book about true-crime obsessed, detective prodigy Stevie Bell. While the actual mystery of this one felt maybe a little rushed I guess? I still enjoyed it a ton! I didn't exactly guess the whodunnit, but I rarely do, so to me it was a decent reveal. I love how the mysteries that Stevie is solving take place in different time periods. 1930s, 1970s, 1990s, its a good variety.

MJ is great at writing quirky but realistic characters, and she definitely knows her way around true crime so, I feel like she's really found her niche here!! I have enjoyed her writing before, I liked Shades of London, and my Sister in Law Loved Suite Scarlett, but she MJ has a bad habit of leaving a series on a cliff hanger and not getting back around to writing/publishing the last book... so.... Fingers crossed for Stevie Bell!!

I feel like I'm in the minority for actually liking David, but I'm also a super weirdo who likes Logan the best out of Rory's BFs on Gilmore Girls, so IDK. Maybe I have a just thing for a subtype of "Bad Boys" and it's "Rich Rebels" (I just thought of that now, go me.) He genuinely cares about Stevie, he knows he's not who he was "raised" to be, and he wants to prove it. He screwed up big time at the end, but he's also having a bit of an identity crisis. All of the characters are freaking out about the future in their own way,  (except maybe Vi, who seems to be pretty chill about it.) Janelle is WAY overthinking it, and making spreadsheet after spreadsheet, Stevie is absolutely avoiding thinking about it as much as possible, and Nate is secretly stressing and not telling anyone that he might just be the most freaked out of all. David's way of dealing with it is to be an impulsive idiot. It all checks out. I'll be ok with it if things get resolved in the next book... *AHEM. MJ.* 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder and Blood

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, Toxic friendship, Grief, and Drug use

huntress's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Blood, Gaslighting, Grief, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Addiction, Drug use, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Murder, Violence, and Vomit

rissaandherbooks's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

I still loved this book, but it just wasn't the same as the others in the series.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Alcohol, Cursing, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Drug use, Violence, and Medical content

Minor: Sexual content

thewoodlandbookshelf's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Addiction, Vomit, Grief, Death, Murder, Suicide, Sexual content, Panic attacks/disorders, Drug use, and Alcohol

toffishay's review

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This was a weaker mystery than the others in the Truly, Devious series. A little harder to follow and more of a guess at the end. The travel through London dragged the story to me, but others might find that part interesting. The more social drama between Stevie and her friend group was interesting though; I would have liked to see more of them to offset how annoying Stevie is in this one! The book leaves off on a cliffhanger that I think will have me coming back. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Toxic friendship, and Death

Moderate: Violence, Grief, Infidelity, and Murder

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Suicide, Medical content, and Death of parent