Confessions of a Teenage Sleuth

by Chelsea Cain

"If you are reading this, then I am gone and this manuscript, per my instruction, has been delivered to the writer Chelsea Cain for publication as she sees fit..."

America's favorite girl detective is back to set the record straight. According to our titian-haired heroine, she was not a fictional character, but an intrepid real-life sleuth who investigated some of the twentieth century's biggest mysteries. And the famous series she starred in was not cooked up by a team of writers, but plagiarized from her exploits by a nosy college roommate-who, not surprisingly, got a whole lot wrong.

Here are the daring escapes, brilliant hunches, and dependable stock characters, including interlopers from numerous other beloved series, that have delighted generations of fans. And here, also, are the details of teen-sleuth life that you never the secret romances, reckless driving, minor drinking problems, political action, and domestic drama that have, up till now, remained hidden from these brave detectives' adoring public.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Humor, Young Adult, Adult, Books About Books, Adult Fiction

160 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2005

About the author

Chelsea Cain is the New York Times bestselling author of the Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell thrillers Heartsick, Sweetheart, Evil at Heart, The Night Season, Kill You Twice, and Let Me Go. Her next book One Kick (August, 2014) will be the first in her Kick Lannigan thriller series. Her book Heartsick was named one of the best 100 thrillers ever written by NPR, and Heartsick and Sweetheart were named among Stephen King's Top Ten Books of the Year. Her books have been featured on HBO's True Blood and on ABC's Castle. Cain lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and daughter.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

A parody of the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and other series that many of us read in our childhood.

And yet, I found myself wishing it had been funnier. Maybe it's that I'm not as familar with the conventions of the various mystery series being parodied here, having not read one in years. But part of me felt like this was a recent Saturday Night Live skit--good for the first few moments, but extended past the point where it continued to be funny.

The story follows Nancy across her life as she solves various mysteries and deals with the continuity errors from her various stories. It's amsuing, yes and the various mysteries do work hard to send up the elements of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew novels. But there are times when it feels like Cain is trying too hard to go for the joke or too obviously setting up things for an eventual punchline. I expect a lot of this is the limitations placed on her by choosing to write in the style of a Nancy Drew mystery.

I wanted to love this book, but I came away only slightly amused.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

High literary art, this ain't. But it is a quick, breezy read that's an absolute joy for anyone who's ever idolized the original plucky teen sleuth. And let's face it: who hasn't? I polished it off in a day, enjoying the reinventions of Nancy and numerous other members of the adolescent sleuthing coterie. And, while I know that there were countless references to characters I once revered (and have since forgotten) that were wasted on me, I still thoroughly enjoyed being given an excuse to immerse myself once again in a world where mysteries lurk around every corner awaiting tidy, pithy solutions. This book has inspired me to dust off my long-neglected Nancy Drew hardcovers and remember all the things I loved about them.

[Kyra Leseberg (Roots & Reads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chelsea Cain is well-known for her thrillers featuring serial killer Gretchen Lowell but I think her writing really shines with her humor!  
I recently read her graphic novels featuring former Avenger Mockingbird turned Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Bobbi Morse, and was absolutely blown away by the feminine badassery (yeah, I made that a word about a hundred reviews ago) and wicked sharp humor.

Searching through Cain's backlist of books sans serial killers, I found Confessions of a Teen Sleuth and I am so glad that I did!

In this parody of the life and times of Nancy Drew, we learn that Nancy's jealous former college roommate Carolyn Keene spent her life profiting from Nancy's adventures, writing books (without Nancy's permission!) based on the mysteries the teen sleuth solved.  Unfortunately, Keene got a lot of information wrong and Nancy is ready to set the record straight.

Each of the ten short chapters covers a mystery to solve in different eras of Nancy's life:

-While helping Frank and Joe on a case about a missing waitress, Nancy falls in love with Frank but decides her "special friend" Ned Nickerson needs her more.

-Nancy finds out her college roommate Carolyn Keene is kind of obsessed with her while solving the case of a professor's missing clock.

-Married to Ned and bored with her life, Nancy travels to Europe with Frank Hardy to save his brother Joe from Nazis.

-Still married but now suffering from postpartum depression after the birth of Ned Junior, Nancy's dad surprises her with the news that her mother isn't actually dead.  Armed with little information Nancy sets out to solve the mystery of her long-lost mother.

-Nancy's faithful housekeeper Hannah Gruen is arrested under the suspicion that she's a Communist spy.  Nancy learns that Hannah is in fact her aunt (her long-lost mother's sister) and with the help of Frank Hardy  they meet with the President to determine why innocent Hannah has been framed.
-Nancy helps out TEEN, a unit of the CIA, with a case of extreme international importance but finds the CIA is really manipulating young spies for their own gain.

-Now divorced from Ned Nickerson, Nancy surprises Ned Junior with a visit to his Haight-Ashbury home and runs into former flame Frank Hardy. Before they can rekindle that flame, Nancy's ex husband is kidnapped.

-When Nancy's long-time nemesis Cherry Ames is murdered, Nancy is at the top of the suspect list and must solve the mystery before she's arrested.

-Heading into their twilight years, Nancy and Ned are no longer married but still "special friends". They go on a cruise together where they meet Encyclopedia Brown and team up to solve the mystery of a ghost seen wandering the halls at night.

-After the death of ex-husband and "special friend" Ned, Nancy travels to New York to confront Carolyn Keene at a publishing event.  She decides to write her own tell-all memoir and is side-tracked when she receives a mysterious note leading her to a new mystery.

Along the way are appearances from memorable characters like Nancy's BFFs Bess and George, the Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, and mentions of several more famous teen detectives, including Trixie Belden's daughter (who [spoiler alert] Ned Junior marries!).

Along the way are true gems like these:

"Your mother did not die of influenza, or in a fire, nor was she attacked by a collie." (I had always been fearful of collies.)
Your mother ran off. She was a suffragette."
"Oh!" I cried.

______


"You're talking about last weekend. I couldn't go to Ned's office party. I had to rescue Ned Junior from the old well in the backyard."
"But how did he get in the well?"
"I lowered him. We were playing 'rescue from the old well.' "

______

"Do they have a meeting place here on campus?"

George nodded. "There's a secret hall just up the street. They meet secretly every Saturday night at the secret hour of midnight."

"Why, that's in only one hour!" observed Donna.


Full of the beloved characters readers came to know and love in the Nancy Drew mystery series, Confessions of a Teen Sleuth gives the "real story", describing Nancy in a completely new and shocking way.  From her secret love affair with Frank Hardy, through marriage and motherhood, well into her twilight years, Nancy found happiness as the world's most acclaimed amateur sleuth.

This parody of Nancy Drew is spot on, down to the illustrations by Lia Miternique. If you're a fan of the old school teen detectives and have a sense of humor, Confessions of a Teen Sleuth is definitely worth a read!

For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chelsea Cain has done a wonderful job of taking my favorite characters from my youth--Nancy Drew, Ned Nickerson, the Hardy Boys (Joe & Frank), the Bobbsey Twins, and several more--and turning them into a 21st-century novel that had me laughing out loud throughout the entire story.

Granted, THIS story is probably not for the teen-set, unless your son or daughter is more mature. The Nancy and friends of THIS book drink and smoke, make out, have sex and even an affair, and in general aren't as perfect as their former counterparts. That said, however, CONFESSIONS OF A TEEN SLEUTH is a thoroughly enjoyable book that reads as a series of mysteries solved, of course, by the aging Nancy Drew. She starts out as the teen sleuth of the 1920's, and ends up an octogenarian in her 80's in the 1990's.

Very funny and amusing, I'm glad I picked up a copy of this book!

[Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a *hilarious* parody of Nancy Drew books. After 7 decades of being misrepresented, Nancy finally has her say.

Nancy's former college roommate, Carolyn Keene, has been writing about Nancy (without Nancy's permission), and has apparently gotten many details wrong. The truths are that Nancy is a tramp and incredibly vain (!), Frank Hardy played a major role in Nancy's life, and Nancy didn't stay 16 or 18 forever. Each chapter of Confessions is another era in Nancy's life, but also includes some sort of mystery.

Cain's version of Nancy's life is hysterical, scandalous, and trampy. Since pretty much everyone knows who Nancy Drew is, anyone can find this funny, but if you're not ready to have your image of the most famous girl detective shaken, you should stay away :)

[Kristin Boldon · Rating 2 out of 5]

For hardcore girl detective fans only. I think the window on this book has passed given the racism, fat shaming and closeted gays, so even die hard fans with an open sense of humor and willingness to let things of a time be in their context should be wary.

It starts so promisingly! It's an homage and parody of Nancy Drew, imagining Nancy as a real person whose detections were recorded by her college roommate Carolyn Keene. It goes through all the years of the phases of the books, and has some super fun elements like Nancy's ongoing flirtation with Frank Hardy, and speculation on background characters like Nancy's mom. And the illustrations by Lia Miternique are delightful additions in the spirit of the originals.

Depending on what other series you enjoyed, it's delightful to find other series referenced. For me, it was Trixie Belden, but there's also Cherry Ames, Tom Swift, and others. Stories that featured series I didn't know (e.g. Time Swift) left me cold, so as the years advanced and the these accumulated the charm of the book palled.

But where this book failed most spectacularly was in walking that admittedly tricky thin line between poking fun at something by critiquing it, and then embodying that which you purport to criticize. It was great and funny to have Cain point out that Nancy as a character was vain and there was a great deal of fat shaming and racism in the books. But even in a parody, when Cain makes all the villains fat, and has a lot of racist stuff go unquestioned then she's just deploying those bad tropes herself.

I haven't read Cain's mysteries. I have read her graphic novels, Mockingbird which I loved, and Man-eaters which I felt fell into exactly these issues--trapped in second wave white feminism that hasn't made the leap to intersectionality. I think I love many of the same things Cain does, and I loved her poking fun at Nancy Drew. But when, for example, she continues to make Bess fat and George a lesbian and have these be things that are being laughed at, not celebrated, then she hasn't transcended the material she's working with, which is the aim of a good homage and parody.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

On a library listserv I read, a children's librarian recently lamented that the dozens of hard-bound Nancy Drew books in her collection don't circulate. She asked for suggestions to promote the series, which likely seems outdated and decrepit to today's Gossip Girls audience.

Lucky for the befuddled librarian, girl sleuths are enjoying a pop culture renaissance. In addition to the release of a Nancy Drew movie this summer and the popularity of latter-day titian-haired teen P.I. Veronica Mars, a number of non-fiction books about the original girl detective have been published.

I read my mom's vintage Nancy Drew hardcovers as a kid, and given my recent obsession with Ms. Mars, I picked up Chelsea Cain's satirical romp with the expectation of campy amusement. I was not disappointed by Confessions of a Teen Sleuth in that department. The book is purportedly Nancy's first-person autobiography, related via a decade-hopping trail of vignettes - her attempt to set right the errors of Carolyn Keene. It pokes fun at the series' conventions, like Nancy's goody-goody reputation. Turns out she and Frank Hardy were pretty hot and heavy back in the day, and Nurse Cherry Ames was the detective's arch-nemesis. We all knew that deep down, Nancy was kind of a bitch, and this autobiography proves it to humorous effect.

These story elements are fun if you're familiar with the numerous heroic do-gooder series of the latter 20th century. (Encyclopedia Brown even makes a cameo as an overweight, pizza-faced, middle-aged version of himself who still lives with his parents.) However, at barely 150 pages - a number of which were captioned illustrations - the book felt over-long and I quickly got bored with the novelty of the premise. Confessions would've been great as a short story or magazine piece, but the gimmick doesn't hold up over the course of a full-length novel.

I only recommend this book if you're a die-hard fan of campy teen detectives. Which, embarrassingly enough, I am.

[C.J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Readers of Carolyn Keene's version of my life's events may be surprised to learn that Ned Nickerson was not the love of my life." That opening sentence epitomizes this book: Not only is Nancy Drew, fictional titian-haired teenage sleuth, a real person, but so are her equally fictional biographer and boyfriend. This parody of the youth-sleuth series churned out by a syndicate under the pen name Carolyn Keene mimics not only the novels' comic-book plots but their somewhat plodding style. And, as a parody should, this one digs up our memories and then flips them upside down. Housekeeper Hannah Gruen is younger than we thought. Ned is needier. Nancy -- who ages chapter by chapter, marries, has a child, but never gives up sleuthing -- is a bit pompous, really.

I had the same reaction as several other reviewers: this book was such an inspired idea, I hoped it would be funnier. It's even more lightweight than the original series, although author Chelsea Cain stirs things up by tossing Nancy into some political ferment in each era: "The Clue in the Nazi Nutcracker, 1942." "The Mystery of the Congolese Puppet, 1959." "The Haight-Ashbury Mystery, 1967." Other highlights include cameo appearances by the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy's feud with Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, her ambivalence about Ned, and her comical blindness to what any of us could guess about her chums Bess and (especially) George.

If you were a Nancy Drew fan growing up, you'll get a kick out of this book.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny, funny, funny--from its cover, to its nostalgic, cheesy, black and white line drawings, to just the whole idea--the real, TRUE story of Nancy Drew, in all her adult glory. Even the chapter titles are funny--"The Clue in the Nazi Nutcracker," "The Mystery of the Congolese Puppet." The mysteries themselves are rather weak. I think the book might have been stronger with more interesting mysteries, but I don't think that was the point. The author tried to fit in as many of the classic Nancy Drew traits (her titian hair, her tweed skirts and blouses, her roadster) but with a twist. She also throws in characters from other mystery series such as the Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames, and Tom Swift. According to Cain, the real Nancy is catty, self-absorbed, and...a slut. Yes, she marries Ned Nickerson, but she's secretly in love with Frank Hardy and has his love child, whom she passes off as Ned Jr. Carolyn Keene was her roommate who stole all Nancy's stories and passed them off as her originals. George is a lesbian. Housekeeper Hannah Gruen is accused of being a Communist spy which Nancy is forced to keep secret because Hannah know the real truth about Ned Jr. I also love how Nancy moves through a time line--from the suffragettes, to Prohibition, to the World Wars, to the Cold War and Communism, to Haight-Ashbury. If you were a fan of Nancy Drew you'll thoroughly enjoy this book. It's so clever--I wish I'd thought of it!

[Cat. · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, if you haven't read Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, this books will be drudgery. If you inhaled the whole series over and over every summer as I did, this is a quick and amusing trip back through time, breaking all of Stephen King's writing rules. The one that cracked me up when I finally noticed it--on about page 30--was that no one "says" anything. Everyone "exclaims" or "nods" or "declares." Of course, Tom Swift says things "obviously" and "inventively," bringing tears of laughter to my eyes.

Yes, all the sleuthing heroes of the 40s through the 60s are here: Trixie Belden, Cherry Ames, even Encyclopedia Brown makes a cameo appearance! The chapters are as brief as the chapters in the books always were, and there is much drama, discussion of the combing of titian hair, and mention after mention how slim and attractive Nancy always is. The more I think about the book, the funnier it becomes.

Maybe I'll read it in the bathtub again tonight.

[Shelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a confection - a dessert with no great nutritional value, and a heck of a lot of fun. Even if you haven't read all the Nancy Drew Hardy Boys Cherry Ames Trixie Belden teen sleuth oeuvre, you'll get most of the jokes. Enjoy!

[Cherylyn Ebertz · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’re a Nancy fan & especially love making fun of how outrageous her hijinks are, her super specifically suited skill set for every shenanigan imaginable, and her perfectly slim & attractive figure & smooth Titian hair that stays expertly coiffed, even when scuba diving inside a shipwreck then this book is for you.

I especially loved the guest appearances from Donna Parker, Encyclopedia Brown, & even a cameo from The Sweet Valley Twins.

I’m very easily amused, but laughed aloud several times!

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This light satire of those wonderful teen sleuth books that we all grew up on was a bit uneven. I enjoyed the gentle mocking of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames, and the bevy of other fictitious teen detectives. The idea for the book is first rate, Nancy is having a hard time adjusting to adult life and the changing world of the 20th century, and longs for her days as a girl detective. She still maintains her impeccable clothes and drives jaunty cars, just as she remains determinedly clueless that her friend George is a lesbian and hopelessly in love with Frank Hardy with whom she has an illegitimate child, while married to her steady yet dull old boyfriend Ned. She is determined to solve mysteries and have adventures, despite the fact that the world has moved on without her. The mysteries themselves are ridiculous and over the top- which is part of the fun. I'll admit I was more of a Trixie Beldon fan than a Nancy Drew, so I was delighted that Trixie's daughter makes and appearance and eventually marries Nancy's son Ned Junior. I nearly fell off my chair when the Sweet Valley High twins rented Nancy's apartment. Each chapter in this book is really a stand alone story. Some are wonderfully inventive and some fall flat. I enjoyed it for the nostalgia, but wish it had been just a bit sharper, tighter and more worthy of it's heroine.

[Diana H. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, I didn't expect to be bowled over by this rip on Nancy Drew, and I wasn't - so that's alright, I guess.
The plot seems to assume that Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames, and a multitude of other fictional sleuths were actually real people. I think this could have been a really good jumping off point for a story.
However, by changing the basic characters of these well-loved characters, the author has made it difficult for fans to enjoy. Cain seems to take great joy in mocking character traits, modes of dress, and even speech patterns that made these sleuths who and what they were - role models for lots of young boys and girls over the years.
I'm not saying that this book was poorly written, it wasn't, it was just not what I expected. It could have been so much more than it ended up being - it was a rather sad effort (but that's just my opinion).
I gave it one star because Cain can write and that is not in doubt. I just didn't like this particular book.

[dearlittledeer · Rating 3 out of 5]

i always felt sorry for nancy drew's friend bess, the pudgy one among titian-tressed nancy and lean, boyish george. turns out -- apparently! -- that bess was a hottie, and nancy's jealous roommate carolyn keene just wrote the pudge into the story. or so this snarky "parody" says. instead of keeping nancy a perennial sweet 16, confessions allows our heroine to age -- from a teen in the '20s to the old lady who writes her memoirs in 1992. and it's frank hardy, not boring old ned, who has her heart through it all. but her first love, of course, is the solving of mysteries. hop in your roadster and join river heights' favorite teen sleuth for a little bit of makeup and mayhem.

[Carin · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a hilariously silly idea with a terrific execution: the memoir of Nancy Drew. Her roommate at Vassar, Carolyn Keene, stole Nancy's stories and got a lot of the details wrong so here Nancy sets the story straight, and also explains what happened after. Did she marry Ned? Did she have children? What were the Hardy boys really like? Who secretly hated Bess? Why did Nurse Cherry Ames have a vendetta against Nancy? All these questions and more are answered in Nancy's (Ms. Cain's) rollicking tale.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read every Nancy Drew book as a kid, so I immediately recognized the over-the-top, perky tone of this book. It's a clever idea--Nancy Drew is a real person, was roommates with Carolyn Keene in college, and Carolyn wrote about her life but got a lot of things wrong. This is supposed to be the "real" story of Nancy Drew, with appearances by the Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, and other fictional sleuths. It was pretty funny and clever in places, but didn't improve on itself or finish well--I soon got tired of the contrived parody (especially all the sexual references).

[Roxanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

My Thoughts about Book
The story itself was well written. Even though it was meant as a parody, I did not find it at all humorous. (The next few sentences will contain a bit of spoilers).The idea of Nancy Drew not marrying the one she truly loved and deceiving an honest Ned Nickerson is both horrible and sad. To me,this seems out of character for someone like Nancy Drew. However, I did like how the author made Carolyn Keene into a real person. I thought it was good how she managed to use Keene to interview Nancy Drew. I found that creative.

[David Dedin · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can anyone give this book less than five stars? With its aging child detectives (who've all become failed adults), its clearly the precursor to the Venture Brothers! For anyone who grew up reading Naccy Drew/Hardy Boys books, this book is hysterical. It successfully parodies those books' simple plots, silly villains, and clear abuse of exclamation marks after simple sentences. I mean, you get to see an aging Nancy Drew taking an ExLax and watching "Murder, She Wrote" for God's sake!

[Mary Bronson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book a long time ago back in high school. I was at my local library and was browsing around and came across it and I thought it was an interesting read. I enjoyed reading it. I thought the plot was good and the characters were well written too. I thought it was an interesting how Chelsea decided to make Nancy Drew a "real person" and not a fictional character if that makes sense. I think I might want to re-read it again sometime.

[Amy Weiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was still pretty young when I found a copy of The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene at my grandma's house. I guess it had belonged to my older sister. I read it and was hooked. I read all the other Nancy Drew books I could find in the local library, and then had them order the others from the inter-library loan. Somehow I never was drawn into any of the other teen-sleuth stories, but I knew of quite a few. I later read that Keene didn't actually write all the books, many (most?) were written by a consortium of writers. All of that, and the fact that I have a twisted sense of humor, means I was the perfect target audience for this book by Chelsea Cain. Here is a sense of what's inside from the Introduction:

...As many of you know me only as a character in a series of books written by a former friend of mine named Carolyn Keene, let me make one thing clear: Carolyn Keene used my name without my permission and made a career for herself telling stories of my adventures, many of which were fraught with error and some of which were patently false.
...I feared that if I revealed myself, details might come to light that could embarrass my husband and child.

Yet the time is now ripe for Nancy Drew to do just that. Reveal herself and the truth behind the stories in those teen-sleuth novels, and the other mysteries that she faced in her adult life too. I chuckled throughout the whole thing. If you don't know much about the teen sleuths of those old books, then much of the parody will be lost on you. But I thought it was a riot.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars - a quick, funny read that parodies the Nancy Drew series. I used to read Nancy Drew sporadically when I was younger; my grandma had a big chunk of the series at her house that I would sometimes read when I was there*. The essence of the series was maintained here - Nancy remains very polished and poised and the interjections of "jeepers!" was oddly endearing. The characters rang true but had added depth thanks to Cain's more subversive take. We see a new side of Nancy via a long-burning romance, her struggles with motherhood, her fight against old age, a realization that amateur detective work is a dying art, to name a few.

After what feels like a lot of heavy reading lately, this was a nice change of pace and I was surprised to see how quickly the pages went. Organized into mini-mysteries that follow Nancy as she ages, I really liked the format. And am going to be re-reading some of the original Nancy Drew books.

* I also just remembered that my sister and I had an old-school Nancy Drew computer game. Ha!

[Bert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Right! Forgive me for being a little entitled but if I read a book that’s subtitled “A Parody” I expect it to be at least a little funny, this wasn’t. It’s nicely written and easily read but the whole idea of the book seems to have been missed, I mean I thought it was going to be a sort of meta-memoir of the character Nancy Drew, instead all it is is a bunch of short stories of the adult Nancy Drew who always seems to find herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. These stories are fine but they don’t really seem to be connected to each other, just a bit random really. Again about the humour, in the back of this book in the acknowledgments the author talks about how her mother thought she should be a comedian, thankfully she didn’t because she really isn’t funny, this book doesn’t even read as though it has the intention of being funny. Sorry Chelsea Cain but I think you failed big time with this one.

Great intention and fabulous cover but poor execution. 2 stars.

[Diane Mezzanotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my goodness! This book was PERFECTION for anyone who grew up reading Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and any of the other teenage sleuth series. I read them all, and this parody hit all the right notes. I laughed out loud a lot at the inside humor that filled every chapter, some of it quite biting and all of it spot on. The chapters of this “memoir” each recounted a mystery Nancy had solved, and they each were the perfect length—fun, written in the style of those old mysteries, and each a little bit different. I loved how Chelsea Cain aged Nancy with each story, and I loved all the winks to devoted fans, even in the descriptions of clothing. The illustrations were also perfect homages. The book was the perfect length for a parody; just enough to be satisfying and not long enough to wear out it’s welcome with overkill. Brava!!!

[Phair · Rating 3 out of 5]

A parody of all the teen detective series books centered on “the real” Nancy Drew who sets the story straight after her old college roommate, Carolyn Keene, made a killing turning Nancy’s stories into best selling books- with changes that Nancy is not happy about. This was fun with lots of pop culture of my youth and all the usual tropes- Nancy’s clothing, hair, language quirks, etc.. All the other teens of note show up (or their kids!): the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Dana Girls, Cherry Ames, Trixie Belden, and even young Encyclopedia Brown. Some are Nancy’s friends and some her rivals. A fun overview of American history through the eyes of characters who never age in our memories because “sometimes I think they don’t want us to grow up. It’s their youth they want to hang on to, not ours.

[Marcie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chelsea Cain's parody is a fun take on some of the Carolyn Keene characters and stories from the long-running girl detective franchise (the CW television channel recently renewed for a second season), although it was not written for a children's audience, but more for adults who read Nancy Drew as a child. As Nancy Drew evolves over a sixty-year period, the content also maturely progresses, but Ms. Cain's knack for interweaving other famous aging childhood detectives such as the Hardy Boys, Trixie Belton, and Encyclopedia Brown makes the intended parody even more nostalgic.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, a confection. The writing veers between trivial and spot-on (and is mostly better than the Nancies not written by Mildred), and the overall arc comes to a good place. Then the illustrations top the cake. I'm a big fan of the little drawings in Drew and Hardy and Swifts, and Miternique nails it (actually 'too good' but the originals were commercial rush-work, this is with love and respect).

"Do you remember Tom Swift's friend Bud Barclay?" I nodded. "He was killed on a sortie just over a year ago." "I'm sorry." "Bud's death really got to me."

[Jennifer Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick, fun read if you were a Nancy Drew fan. This parody was such an amusing book. It's the true story of Nancy Drew told by Nancy Drew herself. I got so many laughs out of the references to not only Nancy Drew, but many other teen heroes as well. Nancy definitely does not let you forget her appearance, especially her "titian hair." And one of the very last references, when Nancy packs up her house and rents it out, had me laughing out loud.

[Amanda Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who grew up reading Nancy Drew, this one is a lot of fun. The writing is just ok, but that's part of the point. Cain has really captured the style of the original books and has fun pushing the narrative to far-fetched places that feel right at home in this world. And of course, Nancy does everything while looking model perfect, even into her 80s.

[David G · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s all a personal preference. I love Nancy Drew…am actually writing a musical called Debbie Brook, the stolen musical.
I thought the conceit of she straightening out the truths of her stuff is great but in a way it is hard to take.
Part of it is that Nancy Never Gets Older. To me, that’s it.
My Nancy doesn’t age.
Or she isn’t hateful

But as a geek it hit some points