Day: June 22, 2020

Now I’ve been waiting since I finished the last first book for this book to come out. I wasn’t disappointed.

Greystone Secrets #2: The Deceivers

Summary

This book is a mystery that will keep you guessing till the very end. After the first book, which I reviewed here both the Greystone kids and Natalie’s moms are trapped in the alternate world.

Everything in the other world is different, like a mirror image only darker, Evil. When their mother tried to fix an accidental kidnapping of kids with the same life details as the Greystone kids, a mix up that was caused by their mother trying to keep them safe. Their mother got trapped along with an ally, and Ms. Morales, Natalie’s mom.

Now the four kids must use all their skills from bravery to kindness to rescue everyone. But to pull of the rescue they have to go back to a world where telling the truth can be illegal and everything is done in code. Chess worries he’s not brave enough to face this other world and Emma wonders if she can crack the codes she needs to get them through this mess, and Finn, well he’s not sure if he can pretend to be okay.

As for Natalie it feels like they jumped to the past not another universe and the world contains some lies she wishes were true, but when faced with the truth will she know what to believe. The second book in this series doesn’t disappoint with the mysteries and the codes.

And examines the power of truth to twist the world.

Review

It is truth universally acknowledged that you have to be a pretty good writer to pull of four view point and jumping around in time. Haddix does it beautifully, it adds to the mystery, the viewpoints are clear and distinct so you can always tell who is ‘speaking’ at the time. I wouldn’t trust many writers to pull off four view points but Haddix does it very well.

The book also doesn’t suffer from second book syndrome, it keeps the level of excitement up though in a different way than I was expecting, over all this was a very different book from what I was expecting. I went into it antcipating high stakes drama, and the drama was high stakes but not in a car chases and running away from bad guys kind of way, it was very much about the interpersonal dynamics of one family, which in the end, I found myself more interested in.

I’d say it’s 4 stars just because while it has good pacing and great points of view it can lull at a few places.

Five Favorite Things

1. Other Natalie
2. The Grandmother
3. Emma’s Codes
4. Finn
5. The secret passageways

Amazon:The Greystone Secrets: The Deceivers