SUMMARY:
1978. Camp Wonder Falls. Four teens are murdered and organized in a grotesque display in a box in the woods, the lid painted with the word “surprise!” When the police of the small town fail to solve the murders, they become one of the most popular cold cases of all time. And Stevie Bell is going to solve it (or try to, at least).
After solving several murders at her elite boarding school, Ellingham Academy, along with the cold case murders of the Ellingham family, Stevie is dreading a summer away from her new friends. That is, until an offer comes along for her to work at the same summer camp that the Box in the Woods Murders were committed. With her Ellingham friends, Stevie is in for a summer of mystery solving and camp fun (and lots of danger).
REVIEW:
The Box in the Woods!! I was SO excited for this one. Being a huge fan of the Truly Devious series, I wondered if this would live up to the original books. While I don’t think it was as good as the Truly Devious trilogy, I still enjoyed it a ton, making it one of my favorite releases of 2021.
What I found when I finished The Box in the Woods is that my heart said it deserved 5 stars, while my head said it deserved 4 stars. I loved the way the novel made me feel, but I also recognized a few things that made me lower my rating. One of these things was the slow start. I’m not going to go as far to say that the beginning was boring, but it felt uneventful. I have heard others complain about the same thing when it comes to the Truly Devious trilogy, and I always excused that because I felt that although the mystery was slower in the beginning, the book was still eventful and engaging. We were learning more about the characters, building relationships, and getting to see the Ellingham campus. Unfortunately, in The Box in the Woods, I couldn’t excuse the slow start. It didn’t seem like I was learning more about the characters; instead, their personality traits were rehashed. New relationships weren’t building, and the mystery was slow.
However, the ending was fast and super exciting (I devoured the last third in one sitting), redeeming the slow start for me. Stevie got to have her classic Detective Confrontation Moment™, we got a chase scene and a surprise… it was everything.
Another thing that was everything? The relationship between Stevie and David. Since the book takes place several months after the third Truly Devious novel, readers get to see how they have settled into their relationship, and it is so cute. I know a lot of readers hate the relationship between Stevie and David (what?????), so if you aren’t a fan of that, you probably won’t like this, but I loved it.
Because of Maureen Johnson’s trademark creepy setting, fun characters and relationships, and complex mystery, I gave The Box in the Woods 4.5 stars (5 in my heart and 4 in my head) and really, really hope that this isn’t the end for Stevie Bell.
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