The vanishing reading progress

     I’m pretty sure I have not read any more of The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson in the past week, which is depressing but I have just been so tired. Seeing as I don’t have any new reading to talk about, I thought I might explain more about Truly Devious, the book that precedes The Vanishing Stair. 

     On one hand, it is a very typical Young Adult book in terms of certain tropes. There is a main character who is “different” and goes to a school for kids who are kind of different or kind of just rich. The school is in the middle of the mountains in Vermont (or New Hampshire, I can’t remember for sure), and the whole point of it is that learning is a game. It was started by a wealthy man, but in its first year, his wife and daughter were kidnapped and held for ransom. The mystery of it was never solved, and our main character, a budding detective prone to sneaky behavior, plans to solve it. While she’s at the school though, she’s faced with another mystery. 

      I read a lot of Young Adult, but not a lot of mystery, so this was nice that it was something new for me but I also can’t really judge it as an actual mystery novel, especially because there are two other books and the mysteries haven’t been revealed yet. I like the slow progression of information; it feels like it’s building up to what will hopefully be a very satisfying resolution. 

     There is a love interest who is admittedly both very predictably the love interest and also becomes the love interest before the reader knows a lot about them In reading the book the second time, this annoyed me a little because I just didn’t find myself caring that much about the character in general let alone in their relationship to the main character. However, the reader does learn more about him after the initial relationship starts and they end up being an intriguing character. 

      I think it was the mystery element of the book that I enjoyed a lot, because again, the Young Adult aspects were not exactly special. The other thing that I found interesting was that the main character has anxiety, and it isn’t just a side issue; it’s a main part of the story that the author doesn’t shy away from and, in my opinion, does a really good job depicting. The present day story in the book (because it does actually jump to the past in different ways) is told entirely through the lens of this character, which means it’s told entirely through the lens of anxiety. Sometimes the character struggles, but it’s encouraging because she can do the thing she loves, which often involves possibly frightening situations. 

      I already said this previously, but I would definitely recommend this book with the caveat that you have to be okay with Young Adult tropes. If you’re gonna hate the very teenage characters with their very teenage personalities (which are accurate to real life teenagers if you ask me) then you maybe shouldn’t read it. But it was a good read.