Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of And Then Everything Unraveled by Jennifer Sturman. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
And Then Everything Unraveled by Jennifer Sturman
A Delia Truesdale Mystery
Point (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-545-08722-8 (0545087228)
ISBN-13: 978-0-545-08722-3 (9780545087223)
Publication Date: July 2009
List Price: $16.99
Review: Jennifer Sturman’s 5th novel, but her first for young adults, And Then Everything Unraveled, introduces Delia Truesdale, a surfing loving California Girl enjoying the summer. That is, as the title says, until everything unravels. Delia's mother is dead, or so the public thinks.
Delia, on the other hand, knows that her mother is too organized to disappear for no apparent reason. Delia fights everyone she knows, arguing that her mother is still alive and in danger and that they must find her. Nobody listens. Instead of helping her, they send her away to live with her two aunts, one a posh snob the other a "downtown bohemian", who bicker with each other on the future for the child. When sent to a rich school, Delia can't figure out how she’s going to find her mother when a guy enters the picture. Now her life gets even crazier as she can't figure out whether or not to focus on the guy or finding her mom. Nobody is what they seem … and then everything unravels.
This book was very interesting. I felt the mystery solving part of it was way too underground. Most of the book was about how wacky Delia’s social life is and about this guy at school. Some readers, boys my age, couldn’t care less about how cute the guy was. I wanted to know whether or not she was making any progress finding her mother in this mystery. I wanted to know where her mom was, whether she was in Argentina or Antarctica. Sure, the rest of it, such as the imagery and the creativity, was excellent but the content of the mystery was minimal. Also it seems that the author is going to have a second book in the series, or maybe a sequel, because it ends in a very abrupt manner.
And Then Everything Unraveled is an average book. As a mystery, it wasn’t much of one. The other aspects of the book, however, were right on. The group that would enjoy this book would be late middle school to early high school girls. Boys would find the boyfriend-girlfriend relationship stuff boring and uneventful.
Special thanks to Alex Nauert for contributing his review of And Then Everything Unraveled and to Point for providing a copy of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Alex Nauert — All Rights Reserved — Reprinted with Permission
If you are interested in purchasing And Then Everything Unraveled from Amazon.com, please click the button to the right.
Synopsis (from the publisher): Delia Truesdale has no idea her life's about to change forever. She's too busy enjoying the California summer. Her internet tycoon mother, T.K. Truesdale, is out of town, and that means Delia can spend all her time at the beach, surfing. That is, until everything unravels.
Her mother suddenly goes missing, and everyone thinks she's dead - excpet Delia, who knows T.K.'s way too organized to simply disappear. But Delia's still sent to New York to live with her two aunts -- a downtown bohemian and an uptown ice queen.
And in case that's not bad enough, she also has to deal with a snooty new school and trying not to fall for the wrong guy. Oh, and finding her mother.
As she delves deeper into the tangle of conspiracies and lies surrounding T.K.'s disappearance, Delia begins to suspect that the wrong guy may be the right guy ... and that some secrets -- especially the dangerous ones - were never meant to be unraveled.
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