Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

I must say that I have found my new favorite book! Truly Devious is a mystery that switches between when Ellingham Academy first opened and the present day. We see a new mystery unfold in front of Stevie’s, the main character, eyes while she is already occupied with the mystery that is already connected with Ellingham Academy. 

Stevie is an anxious girl who loves true crime. She doesn’t just love it but she wants to pursue it as her career which is why Ellingham Academy is the perfect place for her. Ellingham Academy is a school for talented individuals to practice their talent hopefully being able to make that talent blossom into a promising career in that field. Stevie is particularly happy when she is accepted to the academy since she is hell-bent on solving the case surrounding Ellingham Academy. Little does she know when she steps onto the Ellingham Academy grounds that she will experience her own mystery during her time at Ellingham Academy.

The story does a great job of switching between the past and the present while still being able to follow along and not get confused. We get a great look into the characters and their personalities and can understand their decisions and choices.

The book is well written, has a good and exciting plot, and has interesting characters. Definitely a book I will re-read again and again.

The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson (Book 2)

Wow. Just wow. The second book might be better than the first. The Vanishing Stair dives deeper into the mysteries that surround Ellingham Academy, both past and present.

Stevie is back at Ellingham Academy and things are now more complicated than before. She is still absorbed by the Ellingham case from home but would do anything to get back to the academy and her friends. Which makes the surprise waiting for her at home after a certain school day very welcome, no matter how deceptive it is. Even though she wants to focus on the cases at hand she now also has to focus on something else, or someone else. David. The guy she kissed. The one person who will now unknowingly be keeping her at Ellingham Academy.

One thing I failed to mention in my review of the first book Truly Devious was the casual non-binary representation. By this, I mean that the non-binary character Vi just is. There’s no drama between them and other characters, they are referred to as the proper pronouns, and they have a healthy romantic relationship with another character who identifies as female. Being part of the LGBTQ+ community myself, seeing this type of representation without all the drama and trauma, even though that also has its place, was a breath of fresh air. Overall, I really enjoyed the book and loved all the twists and turns and I believe it was a very well-done sequel. 

Reviewed by Daniela Sarah Gram

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

A Chess Story by Stefan Zweig

At the beginning of the pandemic, whilst people were trying to make their sourdoughs whilst knitting a sweater and trying to find space in the cupboard for their excess toilet paper, Frederik Cilius Jørgensen encouraged people to play chess. To motivate them to dive into the game that has been unchanged for literally centuries, he promoted the 1943 novel by Austrian author Stefan Zweig. Jørgensen’s message was that reading about the intense chess matches in the novel would motivate the reader to try and learn the myriad of strategies that can be applied in the game. However, what the novel offers, especially during corona, is much more than kindling an interest in chess. 

The novels protagonist is, much like Stefan Zweig was, an Austrian Jew fleeing the Nazi regime. However, unlike Zweig, the reader learns that Dr. B was captured in the early years of the war. His status as the guardian of the wealth of Austrian nobility, means that rather than place Dr. B in a concentration camp, he is placed in a hotel room in Vienna where he is to stay until he shares the whereabouts of the wealth with the Nazi regime. In the room, Dr. B is left with no distractions and the reader starts to see his mind slowly unravels as the moths go on. As he is on the brink of collapse, he manages to steal a small book from one of the guards, containing the moves from the 150 greatest games of chess. With this book, he has some way to keep his mind preoccupied, first by reading it, then by playing each game and all the moves against himself, through splitting his psyche into black and white. We learn the immense value of a distraction, the value of having something to do. This is why I feel the novel is especially hard hitting during this pandemic.

As we are locked down, asked not to see anyone and with poor visibility to the future of regulations, we have to wonder how people are able to mentally cope. The truth is a lot of people cannot. A lot of people find themselves struggling so much mentally that it will have repercussions on their mental health for the remainder of their lives. This is what Chess Story can give some insight into. Even as Dr. B is finally helped by a physician that lies and declares him insane, so that he can be released from captivity, we see how he struggles to handle himself in the real world. Even with all the sought distractions - the sourdough that has been made; all the sweaters that have been knitted - this lock down will indubitably leave scars on our society for years to come. In that, and with the irony that the novel itself will act as a distraction, the novel will feel hard hitting and unbelievably relevant. This helps prove how timeless the incredible writing from Zweig is. You will be left wanting to read all his novels, that were published to help distract from Second World War, as you try to distract yourself from what feels like a never-ending pandemic.  

Reviewed by Gus

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Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

This powerful and thought provoking work is a product of eight years of journalistic endeavor into the desires and sexual narratives that shape women’s lives. This book is based on the experiences of three different women, Maggie, who is deeply in love with and seduced by her high school English teacher, Lina, a woman in a passionless marriage with a husband who won’t kiss her, fulfilling her needs through an intense affair, and Sloane, whose husband enjoys watching her have sex with other men. These women all come from very different backgrounds and experiences, but what makes them similar is that they have desires and are punished for acting upon them. 

One aspect of this book that I personally felt was very compelling was that it explored not only the ways in which men treat women, but also the treatment of women by other women, societies and communities and how this impacts upon their psychological scars and interacts with their abilities to realize their desires. Taddeo’s hope for the book’s effect is that it may lead others to “register the heat and sting of female want so that men and other women might more easily comprehend before they condemn”.

The stories of these three women are so enthralling that it reads like a fiction novel, leaving me awestruck when I carefully considered that the events I was reading had actually happened and affected real lives. Despite some quirky phrases and language, this is a beautifully written collective. It exposes wider narratives of sexual and gender inequality through the lens of raw and intimate accounts of female desire. I highly recommend this book; I couldn’t put it down, happy reading!

Reviewed by Emma

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On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason

One of the foremost challenges of the current generation, is to change the perception of climate change. We can consistently be told the facts – that climate change may be irreversible by 2030, the 20 warmest years on record have been in the last 22 years, more than 1 million species face extinction, the ocean acidification level is at a level not seen in 50 million years, an area about the size of Denmark of pristine tropical forest is lost every year, and so on. This makes for terrifying reading, but even as I sit here, a literal meter from my radiator, I don’t reach out and turn it off. This is indubitably due to perception. It is the same mentally cognitive mechanisms that make me procrastinate when an exam seems insurmountable. We don’t act, even given it being in our best interest, out of a fear of failure; it seems hopeless. Moreover, the damage we are doing will not be felt by us, but rather by generations we will never have the pleasure of knowing, so what’s the point?

This is what Andri Snær Magnason aims to change with this new, stunning, compelling and engaging book on his absurdly interesting life. With a combination of facts, science and personal anecdotes, Magnason manages to impress on the reader the scale of how climate change will affect every aspect of the life we all have come to know and love. In his discussion of time, he describes how at any one point, you are connected to around 262 years. His grandmother is ninety-four years old. If he manages to meet his great grand-daughter, and assuming she will become as old and energetic as grandmother Hulda, she will be alive in 2186. An honestly unfathomable number. This is however 262 years of a connection as strong as family, a bond that should tell you the importance of the actions we make today. From the beginning of the book, the barrier between us and future generations is broken down. We are introduced to a part of us, a connection to the future, that we will directly affect.

With this in mind, Magnason carries us through his life, interviewing the Dalai Lama about the melting glaciers in the Himalayas, the interconnectedness of humans, animals and nature. In one noteworthy tale of his family, he describes how his grandmother and grandfather would hike to the top of Vatnajökull (the largest glacier in Europe), where at its thickest point, there is over one thousand meters of ice between them and the ground. He did this same trek a few years ago, to experience his grandparent’s feats. If climate change continues unhinged, we risk that over ninety percent of the glaciers in the world will melt away completely withing ninety years – including Vatnajökull. As such, if Magnason’s granddaughter was to hike to the same point him and his grandmother have stood, she would be able to stand on the ground, point to the sky and say, “My grandfather stood there”.  These are the kind of wonderful, yet terrifying, visualisations that Magnason sprinkles throughout the book, helping the reader grasp the scale of the problem at hand.

For the most part, the book does leave us feeling slightly hopeless. Even now that we can comprehend the scale of the problem at hand, it seems we should have acted years ago, and anything we do now, will only slightly mitigate the impending doom. He describes how sacrifices must be made. That we will have to let all the glaciers melt, such that we can focus on combating other effects of climate change that will be even more destructive. We have to accept that there are animals, nature, cities that our children’s children will never see and experience. However, what he does leave us with is a glimmer of hope. Though it will not be the same world we leave behind to future generations, it is a world. But only if we act now, and drastically.

Reviewed by Gus

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason