50 pages • 1 hour read
Maureen JohnsonTruly Devious
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
Stevie explains that the tunnel under the lake at Ellingham Academy was used to smuggle alcohol during Prohibition, and no one would have dared to conduct an alcohol raid on the great Albert Ellingham. Why does Stevie say this?
Why does Albert Ellingham continue to order gifts for Alice after her disappearance?
Hayes didn’t react to Stevie’s joke about the Monroeville Mall. Why is this detail important, and why does it make Stevie suspicious?
Stevie says that “Ellie’s reaction to Hayes’s death was to go maximum Ellie” (332). How might Ellie’s behavior hint at a guilty conscience?
Ellie grew up in three different countries and lived in a combination of art colonies and communes. What does this detail imply about Ellie and her upbringing? How does it differ from Stevie’s?
Stevie doesn’t get along with her parents, but she becomes protective of them when she thinks David is mocking them. Why?
At the end of Chapter 3, after Stevie has helped Hayes move his things into Minerva, Stevie realizes that “Hayes Major had never asked her name” (46). Why is this detail significant? What does it reveal about Hayes and his treatment of people?
On the tour of Ellingham Academy, the tour guide says that Albert Ellingham had a near-religious love of knowledge. What evidence of this love for knowledge is seen on the campus?
Amidst Albert Ellingham’s old possessions, Stevie finds a riddle he composed right before his death, and she wonders if anyone cared about a little riddle “when the great empire had to be managed” (298). How does this moment highlight the humanity of Albert Ellingham?
Right before his death, Albert Ellingham tells his clerk Robert Mackenzie to “remember to play. Remember the game. Always remember the game” (402). Why does Albert say this? What does he mean?
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By Maureen Johnson
