Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

I really, really enjoyed this YA murder mystery. I had no idea what it was about, but a friend had recommended it to me several times, and I decided to check it out while we were in the hospital with our baby girl. I couldn't put it down and blew through it and the sequel in just a day each--and then I found out I have to wait for FOUR WEEKS for the final book in the trilogy from the library, without finding out the solution! Ahhh! I wish I'd requested that one sooner; I had no idea this book was going to suck me in like it did.

The book is about Stevie, a girl starting at Ellingham Academy, this school for super smart and super quirky kids that all have their own interests and pursuits. It's secluded on a mountain in Vermont, and is really well-known for a pair of unsolved murders during the first year it was founded in the 1930s. Stevie's passion is solving mysteries and researching crime, and she is determined to solve the Ellingham murders and to find out what really happened while she is at the school. And then--there's another murder at the school, and Stevie begins to try and solve that one too, and all sorts of things start to happen...

I really liked how readable this book was. It was fast and quick and there were all sorts of quips and references to things that weren't explained or drawn out--it was clearly written for YA, and fits in for that audience perfectly. I thought the characters were really fun and believable... I liked Stevie and her quirks, and I loved her friends Janelle and super-grumpy Nate. The one character I really disliked was her eventual love interest, who I could not at all understand and who seems like a terrible person. I hate when characters like people who suck. But the story itself was so well done, and I loved how Johnson incorporated both the older, 1930s mystery, and the contemporary murder, and had Stevie working to solve them both at the same time. She did a great job putting them both together and giving out a little bit of information at a time to keep you interested as you went. I really loved this book.