Reviews

Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson

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brittany23's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

agxxo's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

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

3.5

The ending of the book bumped it up from 3 stars to 3.5 because I really wasn’t expecting the reveal.

Also, David? An absolute jerk.

As I wrote in an update the other day: “Something just feels different about this book... idk if it's the writing or what but it just feels different. And slower. I mean seriously, we're on page 156 and the investigation hasn't even started yet. Stevie literally just learned about the case like 20-30 pages ago.”

There was just something different about this book and it just wasn’t as good as the others. I literally struggled to get through this— I ended up having to listen to the audiobook for the last like 150-200 pages just to get through it.

Also the cliffhanger? It wasn’t even about the mystery, it was about David kissing someone else (as aforementioned above, he’s a jerk).

Content Warnings

abookishgirl's review against another edition

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4.0

3.5 stars. It’s not quite as good as the first four books, but it’s still a really good read.

tatjana's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-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? No

4.5

denisa4's review against another edition

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3.0

3.5 rounded down

The first half of the book was incredibly boring, especially the part that took part in the 'present day'. Granted I had not read the previous books from this series so I simply could not have cared less about Stevie & co. personal drama. I feel that the first 200 pages could have easily been summed up in 50. I found myself skipping entire paragraphs if not pages. All the descriptions about them exploring London and all the history stuff was just unnecessary and slowed down the plot a lot. The second half was much better imo.

Now for the mystery element of the book...It only really picked up around halfway. It was not the major focus of the book and we did not get nearly enough info on any of the characters to be able to figure out why exactly they killed them beyond the obvious - they saw/knew something the killer didn't want them to (I also guessed pretty quickly what the something was related to). The person who turned out to be the killer was actually the person I suspected right off the bat, but that was only because it just made sense with the timeline and everyone's whereabouts that night. I disagree with others that it was hard to follow who was who, I thought it was easy to remember. But I wish we got more info about the individuals to be able to understand and guess the motive. I really enjoyed trying to figure out what happened and why but the ending was kinda underwhelming.

Overall the idea was great but the execution was half-assed and the constant Stevie & David drama ruined it for me. The story had a lot of potential and would have been so much better if it took place solely in 1995 but obviously, that would not be possible since it is part of this series.