Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson

86 reviews

bookishmillennial's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

Wow, the way that Maureen Johnson set up another murder mystery for Stevie to unravel was so damn entertaining!

This takes place at a summer camp which Stevie is recruited by the owner to join so that she and her friends (Janelle, Nate, David) can attempt to solve the 1978 murders of four camp counselors in the woods. They’re known as the “Box in the Woods” murders and had remained unsolved. I was expecting another few books to fully crack the case but Johnson provided a completely standalone mystery, which was equally shocking and impressive! 

I can’t wait to continue on and read the next book. These books are cozy, funny, and sometimes extremely tense and stressful mysteries, and I love the anxiety representation in them too.

I highly recommend them, and it’d be cool if they adapted it into a movie series! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Child death, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Cursing, Blood, and War

m4rtt4's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense 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

3.25

this was... okay, but a huge disappointment after the Truly Devious Trilogy.

Johnson made Stevie dream of being like Hercule Poirot, but the foreshadowing fell flat with the 'grand reveal'. The point of Agatha Christie's mysteries is that all of the information is available to the reader before Poirot reveals his solution, but since the solution depended on Sabrina's diary which was only revealed in the 'grand reveal' itself, there was no way the reader could have tried solving the mystery themselves and that automatically takes off half of the fun in reading murder mysteries. Also making the killer a literal Nazi is sooo unoriginal and overused — I am no Nazi sympathizer (!!) but I've seen this so many times in all types of American media that you just can't surprise me with that anymore.

I was mostly annoyed with how the mystery was executed, but as a cherry on top I couldn't care less about Stevie and David's relationship either — I don't see what they are supposed to see in each other, and in my opinion Stevie is perfectly capable of being a strong female YA protagonist without having a love interest.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Car accident, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, and Violence

Minor: Slavery, War, Sexual content, Homophobia, and Medical content

kawaii_rose's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders and Cursing

fionamatilda's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders

puttingwingsonwords's review against another edition

mysterious tense 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Murder

Minor: Medical content, Gun violence, and Injury/Injury detail

k5t1e's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence and Death

lily1304's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.75

There's some key information missing until the very end, so you can't really solve it yourself, but I do love Stevie as a character

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Murder, and Death

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Suicide

itziars's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Me ha gustado, me siguen pareviendo unos linros súper adictivos y rápidos de leer. El final se me ha hecho algo precipitado, pero por lo demás, me gusta mucho.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death

theespressoedition's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Drug use and Homophobia

Minor: Gore

asacco9642's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Murder