**A Mixed Bag: A Review of the First Three Books in a YA Mystery Series**

I recently had the opportunity to read and review the first three books in a YA mystery series, which unfortunately left me with mixed feelings. While the series showed promise, particularly in its first installment, it ultimately fell short in terms of pacing and character development.

The first book was, by far, my favorite in the series. It had all the ingredients of a classic whodunit: a mysterious death, a cast of suspicious characters, and a plucky protagonist determined to get to the bottom of things. I found myself becoming increasingly invested in the mystery as it unfolded, and I loved the way the author skillfully wove together clues and red herrings to keep me guessing until the very end.

However, as the series progressed, I began to feel that some of the more mundane moments were glossed over or underdeveloped. The second book, while still engaging, felt a bit like an exercise in padding, with large chunks of time spent on characters and subplots that didn't particularly advance the plot. I found myself feeling a bit disconnected from the story at times, as if I was reading a series of disconnected vignettes rather than a cohesive narrative.

The third book, unfortunately, fell into the same trap as the second. The mystery itself was intriguing enough to keep me turning the pages, but the actual events leading up to it felt overly drawn out and lackluster. The reveal at the end was, I won't lie, satisfying – the character's motivations were well-explored, and the consequences of their actions were fittingly severe. However, the journey itself felt like a slog, with too much repetition and not enough actual tension or suspense.

One aspect that did work in favor of the series was its exploration of themes such as trauma, anxiety, and social class. The author handled these topics with sensitivity and nuance, creating complex characters who were relatable if not always likable. Stevie, the protagonist, grew on me as the series progressed, becoming more confident and determined as she navigated her relationships and personal struggles.

Despite its flaws, I do believe that this series has potential. The author shows a clear talent for plotting and character development, and the world-building is rich and immersive. With some judicious editing and a bit more attention to pacing, this could be a truly compelling series. As it stands, however, I would recommend only the first book to readers who are looking for a engaging mystery with complex characters.

**A Note on Romantic Relationships**

One aspect of the series that did not sit well with me was its portrayal of romantic relationships. The author seemed to rely on a familiar trope – the brooding loner with a tragic backstory – which, while occasionally effective, felt like a shallow attempt at character development in this case. I found David, Stevie's love interest, to be particularly underwhelming, and his presence did little to advance the plot or deepen our understanding of the characters.

In fact, I would have been perfectly happy if Stevie had never had a romantic relationship at all. Her focus on solving the mystery was what made her compelling, and introducing a new character only served to dilute the narrative. As it stands, I feel like this aspect of the series is unnecessary and detracts from the overall story.

**The Potential for Future Growth**

Ultimately, I believe that this series has potential for growth and development. With some pruning and editing, particularly in terms of pacing and character development, this could be a truly exceptional series. The author shows a clear talent for crafting engaging mysteries and exploring complex themes, but needs to work on streamlining the narrative and creating more compelling characters.

For readers who enjoy YA mystery with a focus on atmospheric tension and character-driven storytelling, there's still much to recommend here. However, those looking for a fast-paced, plot-driven series may want to look elsewhere.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome back to my channel and welcome to the start of another weekly reading vlog it is tuesday i am honestly so happy to be starting this vlog yesterday it's not a great day i just was not feeling anything i wasn't feeling myself i was not feeling reading to be honest but now i am actually just like very excited to start the day i don't know what it is but this tuesday i'm feeling good i am actually in the starbucks parking lot about to go pick up my mobile order i just wanted to pop in and say hey and also like you know start off this vlog for once in my life i actually have a plan going into this weekly reading vlog i am going to be reading the truly devious series by maureen johnson and i am actually really excited about it i read truly devious i want to say back in like 2018 or something like that and i don't even know if the other books were out at that point maybe the second book had just come out i'm not entirely sure but i never carried on with this series and yet i have like the first original like trilogy so i figure why not read those books in this vlog and like make a thing of it and maybe i'll make a thing out of series in general here in these weekly reading vlogs i sort of like having a game plan for the week and i like the idea of being very like completionist about a series and finishing it all in one video so i'm excited to do that with you this week uh in terms of like life stuff i don't really have much going on i sat down on sunday night and i like put a list of food for not only dinner this week but also lunches for hayden to make for me so i will hopefully get some like pictures and or b-roll of that for you we actually have like a dinner reservation on saturday i decided to make us a fancy dinner reservation because like i don't know it just seemed like the adult thing and or maybe the like fun thing to do we don't do a whole lot on the weekend so i said you know what let's go ahead and make a dinner reservation and get fancy with it maybe i'll take you along for that too but otherwise it's just gonna be me and you and reading and a little bit of mystery and you know what i might throw in a little bit of romance as well one of my lovely patrons is reading this book whenever i looked up on goodreads i was like okay i'm kind of intrigued it is a new adult college romance i think maybe a bully romance y'all know how i feel about bully romances i love them despite the fact that they're like you know kind of up i read the prologue of this book and i'm already intrigued also there's twins okay twins that switch places say no more i'm in i'm in so i will probably be reading that as well in addition to the truly devious series this week but um i'm gonna go ahead and pick up at my starbucks i will be back with you later today i actually have some work to get done but after that it's all reading all the time baby i also have to read the secret history for another video so um lots of reading getting done this week hey hey it is uh like 9 p.m i just said the cats they're chomping out there on their wet food i'm like 60 into truly devious so i thought i would update you surprisingly i feel like i don't have that much to say and i don't think it's because i've read this book before i think it's because i'm like the 20 to 50 mark of this book not a whole lot happens and i won't say that i'm like surprised but i do seem to remember really enjoying this book and i'm kind of like why why did i enjoy this book i mean it's very easy to listen to which i'm appreciating but i don't feel like very much is happening in the way of solving a mystery granted it's only the first book but i distinctly remember there being like two different plot lines in these books or in this first book while that is the case i feel like we're not really going anywhere with either of them so basically this book is about our main character stevie bell in the present day and she is going to this place called ellingham academy which is this interesting like two year high school so for your junior and senior year you can get admitted if you inquire about it and if you kind of apply but it's not a typical application process and they only take a certain number of students it's free but it is a place where you can explore your like really deep passions and interests and stevie is like really into true crime and she wants to go to this academy because a murder basically happened a murder and a mystery happened on this campus and we get flashbacks at the very beginning of the story to a murder that happened to one of the students on campus and we also get to know what happened to the founders family who end up going missing and we really don't know uh what happened to them and that's kind of like the mystery still surrounding the school and so stevie wants to figure that out herself and i'll be honest with you this is going to be a spoiler-filled video and i say that i'm going to spoil something right now so click off if you don't want to see that we have a murder having taken place in the present day so that's going to have to be something that solved as well one of stevie's fellow classmates asked her if she would like to stage basically a reproduction kind of of what could have like happened back in the day with i guess is it mr ellingham i don't really know the guy that founded the school he is going to pretend to be him and they're going to you know film in this kind of forbidden location for the students like tunnels or whatever secret tunnels the guy who had this idea the guy who was like a famous i guess influencer or something like that he's famous for for being an actor and like being productions and stuff uh he ends up passing away like i think he's murdered or something um and they end up finding his body in the tunnels in this like secret room i think it's the same place that the original girl who was murdered on campus was found like i said there are people that went missing the ellingham wife and daughter and then there's also like a murder that took place um one of the students now we have in the present day a student dying and there's also been some kind of like weird mysterious things that have happened surrounding stevie and her friends the majority of the book so far has really been just about stevie her interpersonal relationships and her anxiety which i'm not mad at but i wanted there to be more problem solving and like more murder mystery stuff up front so i'm not hating it like it's a fun time but i i'm hoping for more and i'm hoping that this next 40 like really ratchets up the mystery and intrigue um but but we'll see i have a minute left on my sd card so i'm gonna leave it here for tonight but i'll be back tomorrow and let you know my final thoughts on this book and we can carry on with the second one side by side we sway there in all the colors the colors remember when we were getting nowhere fast when the garden won't stop giving back i could really use some stuff like that talk to me and tell me all that you've seen another day the same beige t-shirt that i wear every day pretty much happy thursday i am finished with truly devious and i am like 10 into the vanishing stare i feel like everything that i said in the last clip definitely still stands i don't feel like this book was as good as i remember it being but that being said like i still enjoyed it i think if i were to rate it today it would be like a three star but i'm gonna keep it on goodreads as a four because it doesn't really matter that much and i really liked it the first time around i don't know if i miss remembering but i just feel like more things were solved in the first book and actually were solved like pretty much nothing is solved in this first book not much is solved in the way of like the present day murder or in the past there's a riddle that the ellingham dude like leaves behind for someone just for everyone i don't really know i really thought that that one was gonna get solved title of this book definitely leads us to believe maybe at the very least is going to solve that part of the riddle maybe not the entire mystery in the in the past but definitely like you know that riddle well i think she sort of figured out who did the killing in this last book like in the present day i don't know that i feel like it was wrapped up satisfactorily satisfactorily is that a word in a satisfactory way a couple of twists happened and it definitely had me intrigued for this book right so the book ends with stevie leaving school essentially her parents insist that she comes home after you know one of her classmates hayes was murdered i don't think i ever said his name after hayes was murdered it was someone that like stevie was working closely with helping him like portray the old i guess murders she determines that one of her fellow classmates is who killed hayes and this girl goes on the run we don't know if she for sure killed haste but we're like pretty sure but we also don't really know what her motive was so it feels very like unsatisfying we don't really know what's happened i think the girl's name is element she like runs away i think it might have been stevie's roommate and that's sort of like unresolved we also again like we're we have the riddle we don't know anything about it we also might have insight into someone who could potentially have something to do with the murders because stevie finds this like tin and i think the tin might be in hayes bedroom or someone's bedroom and it's got old pictures i think the again implication there is that these two people uh two students they used to be at ellingham academy might have something to do with the disappearance of the ellingham's or maybe the murder of is her name like dot or something like that there are things definitely in the past right in the present weekend we have that girl that kind of ran away that might have killed hayes and then we also i think the juiciest thing is that we find out that the love interest in the last book his name is like is it david his dad is basically donald trump like a successful senator who like probably wants to be president one day and talks about like making america great again stevie's like what the they never talk about it she just ends up like leaving the academy in the vanishing stair the book that i'm on now i'm doing such a terrible job of describing this but now that we're in the vanishing stair stevia is being asked to come back to ellingham academy by david's dad and he's like hey i'm back with me and since her parents are kind of like you know trumpies they're like yeah sure like we love you we take our daughter back on your private jet is this guy like coming pick me up from my house and like why does he want me to come back and he wants stevie to come back because his son is kind of a little rebel and like has gotten kicked out of a lot of schools and he thinks if stevie comes back then skye will like stay at school right but he also hasn't really been talking to stevie so we'll see if that actually ends up happening also the like relationship okay okay now let's get into my thoughts and feelings right don't feel like much has happened in the way of plot we have again like now that i'm speaking it out loud we have had some things happen nothing that i think is like satisfactory or like interesting enough to keep me going but i'm going anyway because of the vibes the thing that's weird to me is the relationship here between stevie and i wanna i keep saying david maybe his name's davis i'm not really sure like i don't really understand her attraction to him but she's like kind of into him and he kind of appreciates her weirdness he's like a bad boy he's got like dark curly hair like a typical he's always behind me gripping himself i swear to god i do have the other voice right here i'm getting so distracted right now but there you go basically i think the romance is like weird and kind of out of nowhere and i think stevie's personality is irritating and or she doesn't seem like a real person she literally seems like a robot it's like maureen johnson wrote a robot to have anxiety and that is who we're reading about not loving it it's hard to sympathize with her as a character but for some reason i just want to keep reading these books i think it's honestly like the vibe and energy it's set in vermont in the fall time i think she's going back in october campus and i'm just like okay this is exactly what i need these are the vibes and sometimes the vibes are enough to carry a book and i'm kind of okay with that the vibes of the inheritance games were absolutely not enough to carry the book but these vibes i think are keeping me going and i do think that at least we're getting enough clues and enough like intriguing elements to keep me going with the story i feel like i do at this point want to see what happens with her and her little lover boy like is he gonna accept her back is he gonna explain why he said that his parents were dead even though his dad's like basically trump is he have something to do with the murders i don't know i don't know i don't know is stevie going to be able to solve some on her own i sure hope so i really hope we find out more about like the past and who done it god damn i don't know i am honestly just like loving his toes right now like he's he's giving model energy i have a massive headache and i feel like i should maybe go to sleep but i guess i could you know what i could tell you before i do that though i had salmon for the first time today which is why i put in that b-roll footage uh one it was just like a cute dish anytime that's a cute dish i'm going to show you hayden's cooking and i just like have other things that hayden's making this week that i want to show you tomorrow he's making that salad that i'm so hyped about it's like this buffalo chicken salad not like mayonnaise-based chicken salad but i mean like a salad with chicken tenders on it and the tenders are coated in crushed pretzels i mean who came up with this recipe she's she's genius she's brilliant her name might be reagan or something it's the half fake harvest girly tonight i had salmon for the first time and you know what it was pretty good i was scared of it because i'd never had any fish that wasn't just like a traditional flaky white fish but salmon was pretty decent especially when it was like covered in a delicious sauce with sushi rice and like seaweed and cabbage and a bunch of other stuff but it was actually really good and i just wanted to say it was really good because i don't know if i've talked about it like in videos but i certainly talked about it to my patrons that i've never tried salmon and i'd actually never tried sushi before either but i tried sushi last week and i don't think i pointed it out last week that i'd never had it before but i tried it and i didn't like sushi but i do apparently enjoy cooked salmon so i'm growing up you know i'm trying new things living laughing loving having a great time i will try to update you more tomorrow i feel like i said that in every clip like i'll update you soon but i sincerely will because tomorrow's friday the past couple of days have been just like crazy with work not to be a little bit to um but you know uterus havers have um periods some of us and uh mine started on tuesday and i was just like oh i want to go to sleep and stay in bed forever and i kind of have so anyway i'm doing much better now and i am ready to have fun tomorrow with my delicious salad and hopefully a really good dinner and lots of good juicy books it's also supposed to rain tomorrow which i'm so looking forward to i mean it's supposed to rain for like half of september which is not a bad thing we need the rain but it just makes me want to read cozy stuff especially like a good mystery so yeah i'm gonna get further into these i'm just going to read where the night takes me i was going to like put a pause on reading the vanishing stair because i want to be able to update you with it but honestly like i just kind of feel like finishing this or like getting through a lot of this tonight because that's what i want to do so it's 10 p.m i think i'll probably listen to another hour and a half of this which means i'll probably be almost done with it tonight yeah i have seven hours left and i read it three time speed so i'll be reading i might check in with you before i'm done but probably not but you know i'll share my juicy thoughts and feelings i really want to get through the series because well i am having a good time with it and then b i really want to read some romance this one does so anyway uh i need to go take my makeup off i'm so tired but i will see bright and early bright probably not early tomorrow so the vanishing stair was absolutely crazy i finished it on my way to pick up some mini bundt cakes before dinner yes we got pancakes before dinner don't ask i finished the vanishing stair on the way there and i like told hayden the entire plot of this book because i was like kind of impressed with it i'm not saying it's like the best mystery ever i'm not even saying that this book was like particularly well done but i still had a good time with it this one definitely like expanded the world and brought in new characters that i think made the story even more interesting whereas some characters got a little bit weird so at the end of the last book i think i told you already that stevie's one of cv's friends and or like classmates runs away because she gets accused of murdering hayes and we find out what happened to her in the middle of this book essentially she ended up passing away we don't really know from what but she is found in a secret tunnel under the academy a secret tunnel that no one knew about some of the other tunnels people know about this one was one that like no one had ever visited and the theory is that elementor l whatever she got like stuck and couldn't get out and so she passed away but we're not entirely sure actually what happened to her there's probably not been an autopsy done to our knowledge so have stevie having struck up that deal with david's dad it is david not davis so i definitely got that right and then we have david just being weird this entire book and i don't really understand why he's being so bizarre but he like lets a bunch of squirrels into the library at the beginning of the book he starts having like scream practices or something like during the school day he's just he's a bizarre guy and he definitely does some like weird in this book and i don't really understand why his character went in that direction he was like typical broody love interest i would say in the first book and then this book is just being weird and then i think the bigger more interesting thing to me was that one stevie solved the mystery in the past you know like the mystery of ellingham academy which is absolutely wild and then we also have again a new character or a couple new characters come in to play so there is a woman who comes to ellingham academy and she has been i guess like doing research on this case for a really long time i don't really know what her credentials are but she asks stevie to come and like intern for her and stevie's like wow like of course i want to do this is like the best opportunity i've gotten ever and this woman has her own issues she's a little bit scatterbrained she has some substance abuse problems she also has a nephew who is living with her to get like free room and board and attend the like local university so stevie strikes a friendship with him as well and she learns things about woman from the nephew so stevie ends up solving the mystery at the very end of this book she figures out that the person that both murdered i think her name is dorothy um like the the young girl who's like in the wrong place the wrong time in the past and the person who ended up kidnapping ellingham's daughter and wife uh same person and it's actually uh the policeman who who ellingham is kind of friends with and has like in his pocket you know what i mean he's the person that did this and it was like to pay off his gambling debts or something like that which i knew it would be something kind of uninspired like that but the way that the showdown kind of happens like we get to see snippets of the past and we also get to see stevie kind of finding these things out in real time and obviously the snippets from the past are more interesting but we get a lot of intrigue through those like timelines kind of converging whenever stevie kind of solves this mystery she is excited to tell someone who will actually care and understand she calls up the woman that she's been working for and the woman is obviously in distress like something's happening to her so stevie ends up calling a man that she used to be like best friends with kind of not really best friends with used to work on campus he ends up getting fired she calls him up and she's like hey i know you gave me your number and told me to call you if anything's wrong and she calls him and she's like hey will you go check on this woman he calls her back a couple hours later and is like yo she was just in a massive house fire she's passed away and the nephew was also in the house we don't know what happened to him and that's kind of how that book ends and you're just like what's going on and how is what's happening in the present tied to what happened in the past because something is obviously not right here the way that the house fire is reported makes it sound like it's something accidental like it was the woman who was living there like was her problem but it's pretty clear to us as readers that it's not her fault and that something bad is afoot also get confirmation in this book as well that there is prize money i guess you could say for whoever ends up finding out what happened to alice and so that is what we're excited about for this next book we want to find out what happened to this woman how she is tied to the mystery like what does she know why did someone try to kill her i mean why did someone successfully kill her i guess and then also what happened to alice because we know that there were kidnappings we also know that the wife uh her body ended up going up later on like she definitely was dead and then obviously the girl that died on campus like she's dead but we don't know what happened to alice who is the daughter of ellingham like what happened her and uh if she's found or if someone figures out what happened to her they get 10 million or maybe more than that a lot of money there's a lot going on here and i'm excited to find out what happens next i feel like i did a slightly better job at telling you what happened in this book this time but i i'm very excited to carry on with this next one and i'm very tempted to plug it in right now but at the same time i kind of just want a vibe i feel like theodore gets it maybe you see this as well i have he's just not that into you pulled up on netflix this is like one of my guilty pleasure rom-coms it's like not that great of a movie but it's also got a lot of good people in it i like i don't know i enjoy it i always go back to it so i'm thinking i might watch that i just lit a novel wix candle i can't remember the name of it but i'll show you what it is on screen it's a very fall-time scent really smoky and atmospheric and i just feel like it's the perfect candle to be burning tonight while i watch this movie and potentially listen to some of this audiobook no promises you know what i mean i told you i was going to update you today and again it's 9 p.m am i really updating i don't know my hope and my prayer is that tomorrow i am in natural daylight and i am not in the same position on my bed again like i always am i'm i really need to i really need to get a life but i think that's kind of like the the moral of this week is that like i just don't i simply don't really have one yeah i need to like i need to go upstairs and like edit upstairs and not in here and like you know get my life together like maybe be a little bit more mobile so i'm gonna try to do that so maybe try to wash this hair hello friends do you see this beautiful beautiful daylight and my uncovered kneecap it is like 3 50 and hayden and i are going to leave pretty soon here to go to our dinner reservation at interro it is an italian restaurant in like the downtown ish area in austin so it's going to take us a bit to get there and i'm excited i mean who doesn't love pasta don't answer that i like pasta i'm excited for the pasta i am like 50 into hand on the wall and nothing's really happening i was really intrigued after that last cliffhanger where we have this uh woman and or stevie's like advisor or whatever dying in a fire and i was excited to like find excited i was interested to find out like what was going to happen and who did it obviously that's like the biggest question i guess to answer in this book along with where is alice but pretty much nothing's happened up until this point we have had a bit of a mishap with one of stevie's friends at school she made a rube goldberg machine that someone sabotaged and it was like going to kill this girl who for some reason i can't remember the name of and then pretty soon after that happens the school is actually going to shut down not because of the like almost death situation but because there's gonna be like a really bad storm or something like that they don't think that they're going to be able to get supplies and like maybe maintain electricity during the situation so they're trying to get students out as quickly as possible and stevie is going to try and stay behind i believe with her friends to kind of see what's happening because after her friend with that rube goldberg machine with sabotage she's like okay clearly something is happening on campus clearly there's something here i need to figure this out and so that is what she is attempting to do i guess by staying on campus the female friend who made the rube goldberg machine is going to be there and also her friend nate who is a guy who was like trying to write a novel or something like that's his thing and then we also have obviously david who is i don't know if he's on the run or what's happened to him but he has run away from school and stevie has gotten like one phone call from him and we have no idea like where he's at or what he's had to do with maybe any of the disappearances or the shady that's gone on so i don't know how i'm feeling i'm obviously intrigued enough to carry on but i do think my issue with pretty much all these books has been the fact that everything kind of happens in the last 30 of the book and then you get a cliffhanger and it carries you on to the next one but it's like i wish there had been little clues breadcrumbs mystery pieces throughout the entire story and when i look back at the books it's not like there's nothing it's not devoid of any mystery but i do think it could have used just a touch more um considering like that's the whole purpose of these books and it's not a thriller you know what i mean so if there's no mystery aspect to it at the beginning of the book it's just a white contemporary at that point and like i don't really care that much about stevie's friendships and romantic relationships so sorry i am very ready to eat though let me tell you that i did skip lunch which like kind of a mistake but i also didn't want to make lunch um okay can we can we take a moment for the boys they're looking super cute also i'm going to show you my new bedding i got in this new um waffle weave gray thrill blanket and then i also got these two brown pillows which i thought looked nice and kind of tied in with some of the warmer tones of i don't know other stuff here in my boudoir i guess i can like show you a better a better angle i mean come on look at that i i don't mean the betting i mean like how cute these boys are but i am going to go ahead and go to our dinner reservation maybe i'll get some like clips of what we get but i am excited and i will finish off the hand on the wall tonight hello friends happy sunday it is around five o'clock i just got finished filming editing and uploading wow the strings going everywhere filming editing and uploading my angsty romance recommendations video i was intending to do it yesterday and i just wasn't in the mood and i'm glad i waited honestly because filming it was so seamless you know i got it up within like an hour and a half of filming it so i feel like pretty good i say an hour half of filming it like the time that i started filming at the time that the video was like live was an hour and a half and i feel really good about that to me if you're curious a seamless filming experience is one where i've typed up notes out of time and then when i go to sit down and actually film i don't really have to refer to my notes at all i kind of have it all in my head i know what i want to say and i don't have to go back and like edit a ton of things out like a ton of takes i like that i don't edit a ton of takes for these vlogs by the way i just uh do a lot of that for like sit down videos where i want them to be concise and uh you know a little bit more polished i'm glad i got that finished now i'm just ready to like spend the rest of today relaxing monday is labor day i believe and so i don't have to work tomorrow but i'm gonna be working on youtube of course i'm gonna start a new weekly reading vlog and get some other kind of like i don't know housekeeping things done both in my actual home and in my like youtube life but the rest of today i just want to kick back and relax i'm so excited honestly to just like hang out i'm gonna do some housekeeping stuff like probably do some meal planning but overall i'm just like excited to hang out i don't know why i'm looking forward to it so much i think mainly because i am keeping my sundays as a day where i really don't have any responsibilities i feel like in the past like every single day i had something to do even if it was just a little thing even if it was just finishing a book it was like i have to get that done i like the idea that on sundays i don't have to do anything obviously i slacked a little bit and had to get that video taken care of but it didn't feel stressful and now i just get to hang out and i'm excited about it i don't know why i'm over explaining this i think like if you are a workaholic i would recommend really setting those like hard boundaries and um you know taking time for yourself because it feels incredible i think i'm going to watch like gilmore girls or something after i'm finished with this vlog clip but uh let's go ahead and talk about my final thoughts on the hand on the wall i am ultimately disappointed with how the series ended which i don't think should come as much of a surprise since i feel like my thoughts and feelings about this book in general have been pretty neutral the entire time this vlog has been going on which i'm sorry makes for kind of like an unexciting vlog i'm hoping that next time i take on a series for one of these weekly reading vlogs my thoughts and feelings are more juicy i'm updating more regularly whatever um that just wasn't the case for this particular series and i feel like that's again unsurprising not only for myself and like how i've been feeling about the series just in general about how other people on goodreads have been feeling about the series a lot of people think it's just kind of lackluster and i totally understand that i think this third book definitely i don't want to say fumbled the bag but i feel like it was an opportunity to kind of like take some of the more boring moments from the first two books and really like quash those and make the third one exciting and unfortunately it had the same issue where the last 30 of the book was really interesting but the first 70 was so so boring it was at the point where it was like i was 50 into the book and i was trying to update you and i really didn't have much to say because not much had happened you know they're staying at the school because of this storm and because of some things that have happened and essentially we find out that charles the guy that's like in charge of the school is the one who did it he's the one that was responsible for the murders and accidents that took place on campus and we find out that the reason for that is that he was trying to collect the money for himself we find out in the last book or maybe it's the book before honestly that there is a reward for finding alice essentially none of the staff at the school can get the prize if they find alice so he wants someone else to come across alice's body and then he is going to find a way to collect that money anyway which you know i think like his his reasoning there was definitely faulty um and he ends up having to like move alice's body around campus in order for no one to to find her or like he wants the right person to find her but anyway it made sense it was definitely creepy it was eerie but i just felt like the way the book ended was a little bit lackluster and a little bit boring you know we get that reveal and it's like okay that makes sense and he definitely has the motive and we definitely have stevie like laying it out in front of not only us as the readers but like all of the people at the school basically are like the people that are left at the school after you know it closes and uh you know the moment of her for revealing this information is interesting but pretty much nothing else surrounding the mystery is very interesting i really didn't care about david i didn't care that they were essentially dating at the end of the story it felt weird i don't like david as a character and i think a lot of people feel the same way i guess stevie as well like she definitely grew on me as the book went on or as the series went on but i never felt like she was someone who i really rooted for because i feel like she was just a caricature in some ways of anxiety not that she had like every possible symptom under the sun of anxiety but i didn't feel like she had a lot going for her besides like her single minded focus on this murder mystery the romantic relationship felt weird and to her it was weird as well so i don't know i just felt like that edition honestly wasn't needed i would have been fine had she not had romantic like love interest at all in this book so i also felt like there were other characters that were interesting like the guy that was obsessed with disney world i wanted to know more about him like there were characters in the story who i felt like could have had some time to shine and i hope that maybe in like future books in the series you get to know those people but also it's like this was intended as a trilogy i feel like it actually would have been better had it just been one singular book things wouldn't have been so drawn out because i think about like the high points and the moments of conflict in the prior books and i'm like that definitely could have been summed up better and could have been done better you know what i mean like let's let's just mesh everything interesting about that about each of the books make it one book and it would have been really fantastic so i don't know ultimately i feel like the series is kind of like a two and a half three star i have the first book rated as four stars on goodreads and i think i'll put the other two is like three stars because they weren't terrible but just not anything super memorable so sorry that this wasn't a more interesting vlog i know i need to stop apologizing but also i just feel like this one in particular like the books aren't even like so bad that i had much to say about them so hopefully you at least got some sort of entertainment value out of this maybe you just like listening to my voice maybe you like the b-roll content of hayden cooking i know i certainly do so play in the next one it'll be more exciting i am planning again on reading some leigh bardugo i'm not sure how much i'm gonna get through whether it's just six of crows or whether it's lee's entire backlist hence how ambitious i'm feeling but um thank you so much for watching i love you all so much and until next time youhello welcome back to my channel and welcome to the start of another weekly reading vlog it is tuesday i am honestly so happy to be starting this vlog yesterday it's not a great day i just was not feeling anything i wasn't feeling myself i was not feeling reading to be honest but now i am actually just like very excited to start the day i don't know what it is but this tuesday i'm feeling good i am actually in the starbucks parking lot about to go pick up my mobile order i just wanted to pop in and say hey and also like you know start off this vlog for once in my life i actually have a plan going into this weekly reading vlog i am going to be reading the truly devious series by maureen johnson and i am actually really excited about it i read truly devious i want to say back in like 2018 or something like that and i don't even know if the other books were out at that point maybe the second book had just come out i'm not entirely sure but i never carried on with this series and yet i have like the first original like trilogy so i figure why not read those books in this vlog and like make a thing of it and maybe i'll make a thing out of series in general here in these weekly reading vlogs i sort of like having a game plan for the week and i like the idea of being very like completionist about a series and finishing it all in one video so i'm excited to do that with you this week uh in terms of like life stuff i don't really have much going on i sat down on sunday night and i like put a list of food for not only dinner this week but also lunches for hayden to make for me so i will hopefully get some like pictures and or b-roll of that for you we actually have like a dinner reservation on saturday i decided to make us a fancy dinner reservation because like i don't know it just seemed like the adult thing and or maybe the like fun thing to do we don't do a whole lot on the weekend so i said you know what let's go ahead and make a dinner reservation and get fancy with it maybe i'll take you along for that too but otherwise it's just gonna be me and you and reading and a little bit of mystery and you know what i might throw in a little bit of romance as well one of my lovely patrons is reading this book whenever i looked up on goodreads i was like okay i'm kind of intrigued it is a new adult college romance i think maybe a bully romance y'all know how i feel about bully romances i love them despite the fact that they're like you know kind of up i read the prologue of this book and i'm already intrigued also there's twins okay twins that switch places say no more i'm in i'm in so i will probably be reading that as well in addition to the truly devious series this week but um i'm gonna go ahead and pick up at my starbucks i will be back with you later today i actually have some work to get done but after that it's all reading all the time baby i also have to read the secret history for another video so um lots of reading getting done this week hey hey it is uh like 9 p.m i just said the cats they're chomping out there on their wet food i'm like 60 into truly devious so i thought i would update you surprisingly i feel like i don't have that much to say and i don't think it's because i've read this book before i think it's because i'm like the 20 to 50 mark of this book not a whole lot happens and i won't say that i'm like surprised but i do seem to remember really enjoying this book and i'm kind of like why why did i enjoy this book i mean it's very easy to listen to which i'm appreciating but i don't feel like very much is happening in the way of solving a mystery granted it's only the first book but i distinctly remember there being like two different plot lines in these books or in this first book while that is the case i feel like we're not really going anywhere with either of them so basically this book is about our main character stevie bell in the present day and she is going to this place called ellingham academy which is this interesting like two year high school so for your junior and senior year you can get admitted if you inquire about it and if you kind of apply but it's not a typical application process and they only take a certain number of students it's free but it is a place where you can explore your like really deep passions and interests and stevie is like really into true crime and she wants to go to this academy because a murder basically happened a murder and a mystery happened on this campus and we get flashbacks at the very beginning of the story to a murder that happened to one of the students on campus and we also get to know what happened to the founders family who end up going missing and we really don't know uh what happened to them and that's kind of like the mystery still surrounding the school and so stevie wants to figure that out herself and i'll be honest with you this is going to be a spoiler-filled video and i say that i'm going to spoil something right now so click off if you don't want to see that we have a murder having taken place in the present day so that's going to have to be something that solved as well one of stevie's fellow classmates asked her if she would like to stage basically a reproduction kind of of what could have like happened back in the day with i guess is it mr ellingham i don't really know the guy that founded the school he is going to pretend to be him and they're going to you know film in this kind of forbidden location for the students like tunnels or whatever secret tunnels the guy who had this idea the guy who was like a famous i guess influencer or something like that he's famous for for being an actor and like being productions and stuff uh he ends up passing away like i think he's murdered or something um and they end up finding his body in the tunnels in this like secret room i think it's the same place that the original girl who was murdered on campus was found like i said there are people that went missing the ellingham wife and daughter and then there's also like a murder that took place um one of the students now we have in the present day a student dying and there's also been some kind of like weird mysterious things that have happened surrounding stevie and her friends the majority of the book so far has really been just about stevie her interpersonal relationships and her anxiety which i'm not mad at but i wanted there to be more problem solving and like more murder mystery stuff up front so i'm not hating it like it's a fun time but i i'm hoping for more and i'm hoping that this next 40 like really ratchets up the mystery and intrigue um but but we'll see i have a minute left on my sd card so i'm gonna leave it here for tonight but i'll be back tomorrow and let you know my final thoughts on this book and we can carry on with the second one side by side we sway there in all the colors the colors remember when we were getting nowhere fast when the garden won't stop giving back i could really use some stuff like that talk to me and tell me all that you've seen another day the same beige t-shirt that i wear every day pretty much happy thursday i am finished with truly devious and i am like 10 into the vanishing stare i feel like everything that i said in the last clip definitely still stands i don't feel like this book was as good as i remember it being but that being said like i still enjoyed it i think if i were to rate it today it would be like a three star but i'm gonna keep it on goodreads as a four because it doesn't really matter that much and i really liked it the first time around i don't know if i miss remembering but i just feel like more things were solved in the first book and actually were solved like pretty much nothing is solved in this first book not much is solved in the way of like the present day murder or in the past there's a riddle that the ellingham dude like leaves behind for someone just for everyone i don't really know i really thought that that one was gonna get solved title of this book definitely leads us to believe maybe at the very least is going to solve that part of the riddle maybe not the entire mystery in the in the past but definitely like you know that riddle well i think she sort of figured out who did the killing in this last book like in the present day i don't know that i feel like it was wrapped up satisfactorily satisfactorily is that a word in a satisfactory way a couple of twists happened and it definitely had me intrigued for this book right so the book ends with stevie leaving school essentially her parents insist that she comes home after you know one of her classmates hayes was murdered i don't think i ever said his name after hayes was murdered it was someone that like stevie was working closely with helping him like portray the old i guess murders she determines that one of her fellow classmates is who killed hayes and this girl goes on the run we don't know if she for sure killed haste but we're like pretty sure but we also don't really know what her motive was so it feels very like unsatisfying we don't really know what's happened i think the girl's name is element she like runs away i think it might have been stevie's roommate and that's sort of like unresolved we also again like we're we have the riddle we don't know anything about it we also might have insight into someone who could potentially have something to do with the murders because stevie finds this like tin and i think the tin might be in hayes bedroom or someone's bedroom and it's got old pictures i think the again implication there is that these two people uh two students they used to be at ellingham academy might have something to do with the disappearance of the ellingham's or maybe the murder of is her name like dot or something like that there are things definitely in the past right in the present weekend we have that girl that kind of ran away that might have killed hayes and then we also i think the juiciest thing is that we find out that the love interest in the last book his name is like is it david his dad is basically donald trump like a successful senator who like probably wants to be president one day and talks about like making america great again stevie's like what the they never talk about it she just ends up like leaving the academy in the vanishing stair the book that i'm on now i'm doing such a terrible job of describing this but now that we're in the vanishing stair stevia is being asked to come back to ellingham academy by david's dad and he's like hey i'm back with me and since her parents are kind of like you know trumpies they're like yeah sure like we love you we take our daughter back on your private jet is this guy like coming pick me up from my house and like why does he want me to come back and he wants stevie to come back because his son is kind of a little rebel and like has gotten kicked out of a lot of schools and he thinks if stevie comes back then skye will like stay at school right but he also hasn't really been talking to stevie so we'll see if that actually ends up happening also the like relationship okay okay now let's get into my thoughts and feelings right don't feel like much has happened in the way of plot we have again like now that i'm speaking it out loud we have had some things happen nothing that i think is like satisfactory or like interesting enough to keep me going but i'm going anyway because of the vibes the thing that's weird to me is the relationship here between stevie and i wanna i keep saying david maybe his name's davis i'm not really sure like i don't really understand her attraction to him but she's like kind of into him and he kind of appreciates her weirdness he's like a bad boy he's got like dark curly hair like a typical he's always behind me gripping himself i swear to god i do have the other voice right here i'm getting so distracted right now but there you go basically i think the romance is like weird and kind of out of nowhere and i think stevie's personality is irritating and or she doesn't seem like a real person she literally seems like a robot it's like maureen johnson wrote a robot to have anxiety and that is who we're reading about not loving it it's hard to sympathize with her as a character but for some reason i just want to keep reading these books i think it's honestly like the vibe and energy it's set in vermont in the fall time i think she's going back in october campus and i'm just like okay this is exactly what i need these are the vibes and sometimes the vibes are enough to carry a book and i'm kind of okay with that the vibes of the inheritance games were absolutely not enough to carry the book but these vibes i think are keeping me going and i do think that at least we're getting enough clues and enough like intriguing elements to keep me going with the story i feel like i do at this point want to see what happens with her and her little lover boy like is he gonna accept her back is he gonna explain why he said that his parents were dead even though his dad's like basically trump is he have something to do with the murders i don't know i don't know i don't know is stevie going to be able to solve some on her own i sure hope so i really hope we find out more about like the past and who done it god damn i don't know i am honestly just like loving his toes right now like he's he's giving model energy i have a massive headache and i feel like i should maybe go to sleep but i guess i could you know what i could tell you before i do that though i had salmon for the first time today which is why i put in that b-roll footage uh one it was just like a cute dish anytime that's a cute dish i'm going to show you hayden's cooking and i just like have other things that hayden's making this week that i want to show you tomorrow he's making that salad that i'm so hyped about it's like this buffalo chicken salad not like mayonnaise-based chicken salad but i mean like a salad with chicken tenders on it and the tenders are coated in crushed pretzels i mean who came up with this recipe she's she's genius she's brilliant her name might be reagan or something it's the half fake harvest girly tonight i had salmon for the first time and you know what it was pretty good i was scared of it because i'd never had any fish that wasn't just like a traditional flaky white fish but salmon was pretty decent especially when it was like covered in a delicious sauce with sushi rice and like seaweed and cabbage and a bunch of other stuff but it was actually really good and i just wanted to say it was really good because i don't know if i've talked about it like in videos but i certainly talked about it to my patrons that i've never tried salmon and i'd actually never tried sushi before either but i tried sushi last week and i don't think i pointed it out last week that i'd never had it before but i tried it and i didn't like sushi but i do apparently enjoy cooked salmon so i'm growing up you know i'm trying new things living laughing loving having a great time i will try to update you more tomorrow i feel like i said that in every clip like i'll update you soon but i sincerely will because tomorrow's friday the past couple of days have been just like crazy with work not to be a little bit to um but you know uterus havers have um periods some of us and uh mine started on tuesday and i was just like oh i want to go to sleep and stay in bed forever and i kind of have so anyway i'm doing much better now and i am ready to have fun tomorrow with my delicious salad and hopefully a really good dinner and lots of good juicy books it's also supposed to rain tomorrow which i'm so looking forward to i mean it's supposed to rain for like half of september which is not a bad thing we need the rain but it just makes me want to read cozy stuff especially like a good mystery so yeah i'm gonna get further into these i'm just going to read where the night takes me i was going to like put a pause on reading the vanishing stair because i want to be able to update you with it but honestly like i just kind of feel like finishing this or like getting through a lot of this tonight because that's what i want to do so it's 10 p.m i think i'll probably listen to another hour and a half of this which means i'll probably be almost done with it tonight yeah i have seven hours left and i read it three time speed so i'll be reading i might check in with you before i'm done but probably not but you know i'll share my juicy thoughts and feelings i really want to get through the series because well i am having a good time with it and then b i really want to read some romance this one does so anyway uh i need to go take my makeup off i'm so tired but i will see bright and early bright probably not early tomorrow so the vanishing stair was absolutely crazy i finished it on my way to pick up some mini bundt cakes before dinner yes we got pancakes before dinner don't ask i finished the vanishing stair on the way there and i like told hayden the entire plot of this book because i was like kind of impressed with it i'm not saying it's like the best mystery ever i'm not even saying that this book was like particularly well done but i still had a good time with it this one definitely like expanded the world and brought in new characters that i think made the story even more interesting whereas some characters got a little bit weird so at the end of the last book i think i told you already that stevie's one of cv's friends and or like classmates runs away because she gets accused of murdering hayes and we find out what happened to her in the middle of this book essentially she ended up passing away we don't really know from what but she is found in a secret tunnel under the academy a secret tunnel that no one knew about some of the other tunnels people know about this one was one that like no one had ever visited and the theory is that elementor l whatever she got like stuck and couldn't get out and so she passed away but we're not entirely sure actually what happened to her there's probably not been an autopsy done to our knowledge so have stevie having struck up that deal with david's dad it is david not davis so i definitely got that right and then we have david just being weird this entire book and i don't really understand why he's being so bizarre but he like lets a bunch of squirrels into the library at the beginning of the book he starts having like scream practices or something like during the school day he's just he's a bizarre guy and he definitely does some like weird in this book and i don't really understand why his character went in that direction he was like typical broody love interest i would say in the first book and then this book is just being weird and then i think the bigger more interesting thing to me was that one stevie solved the mystery in the past you know like the mystery of ellingham academy which is absolutely wild and then we also have again a new character or a couple new characters come in to play so there is a woman who comes to ellingham academy and she has been i guess like doing research on this case for a really long time i don't really know what her credentials are but she asks stevie to come and like intern for her and stevie's like wow like of course i want to do this is like the best opportunity i've gotten ever and this woman has her own issues she's a little bit scatterbrained she has some substance abuse problems she also has a nephew who is living with her to get like free room and board and attend the like local university so stevie strikes a friendship with him as well and she learns things about woman from the nephew so stevie ends up solving the mystery at the very end of this book she figures out that the person that both murdered i think her name is dorothy um like the the young girl who's like in the wrong place the wrong time in the past and the person who ended up kidnapping ellingham's daughter and wife uh same person and it's actually uh the policeman who who ellingham is kind of friends with and has like in his pocket you know what i mean he's the person that did this and it was like to pay off his gambling debts or something like that which i knew it would be something kind of uninspired like that but the way that the showdown kind of happens like we get to see snippets of the past and we also get to see stevie kind of finding these things out in real time and obviously the snippets from the past are more interesting but we get a lot of intrigue through those like timelines kind of converging whenever stevie kind of solves this mystery she is excited to tell someone who will actually care and understand she calls up the woman that she's been working for and the woman is obviously in distress like something's happening to her so stevie ends up calling a man that she used to be like best friends with kind of not really best friends with used to work on campus he ends up getting fired she calls him up and she's like hey i know you gave me your number and told me to call you if anything's wrong and she calls him and she's like hey will you go check on this woman he calls her back a couple hours later and is like yo she was just in a massive house fire she's passed away and the nephew was also in the house we don't know what happened to him and that's kind of how that book ends and you're just like what's going on and how is what's happening in the present tied to what happened in the past because something is obviously not right here the way that the house fire is reported makes it sound like it's something accidental like it was the woman who was living there like was her problem but it's pretty clear to us as readers that it's not her fault and that something bad is afoot also get confirmation in this book as well that there is prize money i guess you could say for whoever ends up finding out what happened to alice and so that is what we're excited about for this next book we want to find out what happened to this woman how she is tied to the mystery like what does she know why did someone try to kill her i mean why did someone successfully kill her i guess and then also what happened to alice because we know that there were kidnappings we also know that the wife uh her body ended up going up later on like she definitely was dead and then obviously the girl that died on campus like she's dead but we don't know what happened to alice who is the daughter of ellingham like what happened her and uh if she's found or if someone figures out what happened to her they get 10 million or maybe more than that a lot of money there's a lot going on here and i'm excited to find out what happens next i feel like i did a slightly better job at telling you what happened in this book this time but i i'm very excited to carry on with this next one and i'm very tempted to plug it in right now but at the same time i kind of just want a vibe i feel like theodore gets it maybe you see this as well i have he's just not that into you pulled up on netflix this is like one of my guilty pleasure rom-coms it's like not that great of a movie but it's also got a lot of good people in it i like i don't know i enjoy it i always go back to it so i'm thinking i might watch that i just lit a novel wix candle i can't remember the name of it but i'll show you what it is on screen it's a very fall-time scent really smoky and atmospheric and i just feel like it's the perfect candle to be burning tonight while i watch this movie and potentially listen to some of this audiobook no promises you know what i mean i told you i was going to update you today and again it's 9 p.m am i really updating i don't know my hope and my prayer is that tomorrow i am in natural daylight and i am not in the same position on my bed again like i always am i'm i really need to i really need to get a life but i think that's kind of like the the moral of this week is that like i just don't i simply don't really have one yeah i need to like i need to go upstairs and like edit upstairs and not in here and like you know get my life together like maybe be a little bit more mobile so i'm gonna try to do that so maybe try to wash this hair hello friends do you see this beautiful beautiful daylight and my uncovered kneecap it is like 3 50 and hayden and i are going to leave pretty soon here to go to our dinner reservation at interro it is an italian restaurant in like the downtown ish area in austin so it's going to take us a bit to get there and i'm excited i mean who doesn't love pasta don't answer that i like pasta i'm excited for the pasta i am like 50 into hand on the wall and nothing's really happening i was really intrigued after that last cliffhanger where we have this uh woman and or stevie's like advisor or whatever dying in a fire and i was excited to like find excited i was interested to find out like what was going to happen and who did it obviously that's like the biggest question i guess to answer in this book along with where is alice but pretty much nothing's happened up until this point we have had a bit of a mishap with one of stevie's friends at school she made a rube goldberg machine that someone sabotaged and it was like going to kill this girl who for some reason i can't remember the name of and then pretty soon after that happens the school is actually going to shut down not because of the like almost death situation but because there's gonna be like a really bad storm or something like that they don't think that they're going to be able to get supplies and like maybe maintain electricity during the situation so they're trying to get students out as quickly as possible and stevie is going to try and stay behind i believe with her friends to kind of see what's happening because after her friend with that rube goldberg machine with sabotage she's like okay clearly something is happening on campus clearly there's something here i need to figure this out and so that is what she is attempting to do i guess by staying on campus the female friend who made the rube goldberg machine is going to be there and also her friend nate who is a guy who was like trying to write a novel or something like that's his thing and then we also have obviously david who is i don't know if he's on the run or what's happened to him but he has run away from school and stevie has gotten like one phone call from him and we have no idea like where he's at or what he's had to do with maybe any of the disappearances or the shady that's gone on so i don't know how i'm feeling i'm obviously intrigued enough to carry on but i do think my issue with pretty much all these books has been the fact that everything kind of happens in the last 30 of the book and then you get a cliffhanger and it carries you on to the next one but it's like i wish there had been little clues breadcrumbs mystery pieces throughout the entire story and when i look back at the books it's not like there's nothing it's not devoid of any mystery but i do think it could have used just a touch more um considering like that's the whole purpose of these books and it's not a thriller you know what i mean so if there's no mystery aspect to it at the beginning of the book it's just a white contemporary at that point and like i don't really care that much about stevie's friendships and romantic relationships so sorry i am very ready to eat though let me tell you that i did skip lunch which like kind of a mistake but i also didn't want to make lunch um okay can we can we take a moment for the boys they're looking super cute also i'm going to show you my new bedding i got in this new um waffle weave gray thrill blanket and then i also got these two brown pillows which i thought looked nice and kind of tied in with some of the warmer tones of i don't know other stuff here in my boudoir i guess i can like show you a better a better angle i mean come on look at that i i don't mean the betting i mean like how cute these boys are but i am going to go ahead and go to our dinner reservation maybe i'll get some like clips of what we get but i am excited and i will finish off the hand on the wall tonight hello friends happy sunday it is around five o'clock i just got finished filming editing and uploading wow the strings going everywhere filming editing and uploading my angsty romance recommendations video i was intending to do it yesterday and i just wasn't in the mood and i'm glad i waited honestly because filming it was so seamless you know i got it up within like an hour and a half of filming it so i feel like pretty good i say an hour half of filming it like the time that i started filming at the time that the video was like live was an hour and a half and i feel really good about that to me if you're curious a seamless filming experience is one where i've typed up notes out of time and then when i go to sit down and actually film i don't really have to refer to my notes at all i kind of have it all in my head i know what i want to say and i don't have to go back and like edit a ton of things out like a ton of takes i like that i don't edit a ton of takes for these vlogs by the way i just uh do a lot of that for like sit down videos where i want them to be concise and uh you know a little bit more polished i'm glad i got that finished now i'm just ready to like spend the rest of today relaxing monday is labor day i believe and so i don't have to work tomorrow but i'm gonna be working on youtube of course i'm gonna start a new weekly reading vlog and get some other kind of like i don't know housekeeping things done both in my actual home and in my like youtube life but the rest of today i just want to kick back and relax i'm so excited honestly to just like hang out i'm gonna do some housekeeping stuff like probably do some meal planning but overall i'm just like excited to hang out i don't know why i'm looking forward to it so much i think mainly because i am keeping my sundays as a day where i really don't have any responsibilities i feel like in the past like every single day i had something to do even if it was just a little thing even if it was just finishing a book it was like i have to get that done i like the idea that on sundays i don't have to do anything obviously i slacked a little bit and had to get that video taken care of but it didn't feel stressful and now i just get to hang out and i'm excited about it i don't know why i'm over explaining this i think like if you are a workaholic i would recommend really setting those like hard boundaries and um you know taking time for yourself because it feels incredible i think i'm going to watch like gilmore girls or something after i'm finished with this vlog clip but uh let's go ahead and talk about my final thoughts on the hand on the wall i am ultimately disappointed with how the series ended which i don't think should come as much of a surprise since i feel like my thoughts and feelings about this book in general have been pretty neutral the entire time this vlog has been going on which i'm sorry makes for kind of like an unexciting vlog i'm hoping that next time i take on a series for one of these weekly reading vlogs my thoughts and feelings are more juicy i'm updating more regularly whatever um that just wasn't the case for this particular series and i feel like that's again unsurprising not only for myself and like how i've been feeling about the series just in general about how other people on goodreads have been feeling about the series a lot of people think it's just kind of lackluster and i totally understand that i think this third book definitely i don't want to say fumbled the bag but i feel like it was an opportunity to kind of like take some of the more boring moments from the first two books and really like quash those and make the third one exciting and unfortunately it had the same issue where the last 30 of the book was really interesting but the first 70 was so so boring it was at the point where it was like i was 50 into the book and i was trying to update you and i really didn't have much to say because not much had happened you know they're staying at the school because of this storm and because of some things that have happened and essentially we find out that charles the guy that's like in charge of the school is the one who did it he's the one that was responsible for the murders and accidents that took place on campus and we find out that the reason for that is that he was trying to collect the money for himself we find out in the last book or maybe it's the book before honestly that there is a reward for finding alice essentially none of the staff at the school can get the prize if they find alice so he wants someone else to come across alice's body and then he is going to find a way to collect that money anyway which you know i think like his his reasoning there was definitely faulty um and he ends up having to like move alice's body around campus in order for no one to to find her or like he wants the right person to find her but anyway it made sense it was definitely creepy it was eerie but i just felt like the way the book ended was a little bit lackluster and a little bit boring you know we get that reveal and it's like okay that makes sense and he definitely has the motive and we definitely have stevie like laying it out in front of not only us as the readers but like all of the people at the school basically are like the people that are left at the school after you know it closes and uh you know the moment of her for revealing this information is interesting but pretty much nothing else surrounding the mystery is very interesting i really didn't care about david i didn't care that they were essentially dating at the end of the story it felt weird i don't like david as a character and i think a lot of people feel the same way i guess stevie as well like she definitely grew on me as the book went on or as the series went on but i never felt like she was someone who i really rooted for because i feel like she was just a caricature in some ways of anxiety not that she had like every possible symptom under the sun of anxiety but i didn't feel like she had a lot going for her besides like her single minded focus on this murder mystery the romantic relationship felt weird and to her it was weird as well so i don't know i just felt like that edition honestly wasn't needed i would have been fine had she not had romantic like love interest at all in this book so i also felt like there were other characters that were interesting like the guy that was obsessed with disney world i wanted to know more about him like there were characters in the story who i felt like could have had some time to shine and i hope that maybe in like future books in the series you get to know those people but also it's like this was intended as a trilogy i feel like it actually would have been better had it just been one singular book things wouldn't have been so drawn out because i think about like the high points and the moments of conflict in the prior books and i'm like that definitely could have been summed up better and could have been done better you know what i mean like let's let's just mesh everything interesting about that about each of the books make it one book and it would have been really fantastic so i don't know ultimately i feel like the series is kind of like a two and a half three star i have the first book rated as four stars on goodreads and i think i'll put the other two is like three stars because they weren't terrible but just not anything super memorable so sorry that this wasn't a more interesting vlog i know i need to stop apologizing but also i just feel like this one in particular like the books aren't even like so bad that i had much to say about them so hopefully you at least got some sort of entertainment value out of this maybe you just like listening to my voice maybe you like the b-roll content of hayden cooking i know i certainly do so play in the next one it'll be more exciting i am planning again on reading some leigh bardugo i'm not sure how much i'm gonna get through whether it's just six of crows or whether it's lee's entire backlist hence how ambitious i'm feeling but um thank you so much for watching i love you all so much and until next time you\n"