Book Review - Maureen Johnson's Death at Morning House
Death at Morning House by Maureen Johnson
Published by: Harperteen
Publication Date: August 6th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
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The Ralston family were the picture of American exceptionalism. Dr. Philip Ralston and his family summered on a private paradise renamed after the eminent physician in the Thousand Islands region of New York. Morning House was designed to foster good health and creativity for his six children, born within six months of each other, whom he adopted while working in England during the war. When he finally married a stage actress his young song Max increased his brood to seven. At Morning House the children lived in a playhouse worthy of the Brothers Grimm and followed a regimen of nutrition and exercise. But their perfect lives were shattered forever on July 27th, 1932. Four year old Max was found drowned in the waters of the St. Lawrence River. Later that night, overcome by grief, his eldest sibling, Clara, jumped off the roof of Morning House, ending her life at only sixteen. From that point on death stalked the family and Morning House was shuttered. Only one child, Benjamin, survived, returning just the once in 2002 to that ill-fated island. Marlowe Wexler is about to learn all about Morning House. At first, her summer seemed to be looking up. She got a job at the local ice cream parlor, Guffy's, with the girl of her dreams as her coworker and then everything went to hell because of petrichor. She was trying to impress Akilah and got a scented candle. There was a fire. The fallout wasn't good. She needed to put the town in her rear view mirror for the summer and her history teacher, Ms. Gibson, came to the rescue. A friend of hers is a professor of history at Syracuse and is working on a history of Morning House. Abandoned by the Ralstons in the 1930s and empty ever since it's about to be redeveloped and is open to tourists for the summer with a group of local teenagers that live and work there acting as guides and she's down one teen. Marlowe is one teen. But maybe she should have asked what happened to the teen she's replacing? The group at the house have known each other forever and have history. She's walked right into a fairy tale land that looks like it should be fictional and she has no idea what dynamics she's disrupting. Because she's there to replace a dead person. Sure, they say it was an accident, but could this house be cursed? Or is there something more at play? At least she has a clean slate if no one finds out about the fire... Or as long as there isn't another one...
I know some people complained when this book was announced because it is a standalone and not the sixth Truly Devious mystery. I would counter this complaint with the fact that this is the most Maureen Johnson book Maureen has ever Johnsoned. Mysteries in two time periods, check. Teen relationship angst, check. Cute LGBTQIA+ relationships, check. Snark and jokes aplenty, a thousand checks just for that dressing alone. What's more is that it's self-contained. While I love the Truly Devious series the fact that the first mystery doesn't resolve for three books came as a bit of a shock to me and then my wallet as I couldn't wait another six months to get to the head of the queue on OverDrive and had to buy the series. I just had to. So here, it's one and done. You get the mysteries solved, you get the love triangles worked out, and you aren't sitting here for over two years stewing about how David treated Stevie! I mean, how could he!?! Can they ever recover!?! Do I even want them to!?! But those are worries for another day, not today Satan! What really drew me into this book wasn't the teen angst, much like the Truly Devious series, it was the historical crime, and here, the Ralston family. Damn. They are a hot mess. And they're Nazis. So, hot messy Nazis. In this day and age it is more important than ever to stand up and say that Nazis are bad. Because, honestly, Nazis are all around us and it's terrifying. But saying nothing makes you complicit. And I will not be counted as one of those people who said nothing. And Maureen Johnson, oh, she has a conscience and a platform and she uses it for all she's worth. Really, if you do not follow her on her socials you are missing out. Yes, they are sometimes weird, but only in the best possible way, but more importantly, she is politically informed and helps out with valuable information about what is happening and even more pressing, what you can do about it. That's why I love Death at Morning House. A human connection to horror. Through a compelling story she shows why Nazis are evil. She shows how one person without a conscious and interest in eugenics can destroy an entire family. Of course, on person without a conscious and an interest in eugenics almost destroyed the world, but this shows it on a more human level. We connect with Clara and her siblings. We see their lives. We become a part of their lives and then their lives are snuffed out because of Nazis. Two of the siblings more literally because of a bomb during WWII. And the extra creepy eugenics twist? Well, I'll leave that for you to discover because this is a must read book. Though naming one of the kids Unity was chef's kiss brilliant.
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