Sidekick Short Review: The Steps (2025) by Wendelin Van Draanen

cover image of The Steps by Wendelin Van Draanen, published by Holiday House, 2025.

The Basics

Page Length: 256

Audiobook Length: ~6 hours

Grade Reading Level: 7+

Target Audience Age: 12-18

Goodreads Score: 3.68 out of 5

Buy it HERE

Setting: Contemporary American town on a wealthy family estate

Genre: Mystery Thriller

Topics: Chess, Family Rivalry, Loyalty, Friendship, Investigation, Secrets, Inheritance, Betrayal

Plot: Fourteen-year-old Ruby Vossen is lonely. Even though she’s part of the powerful Vossen family dynasty, she doesn’t have it all. After the deaths of their wives—Ruby’s mother and her cousin Sterling’s mother—Ruby’s father and uncle fall into a bitter feud over Grandma’s inheritance. In the fallout, Ruby loses her best friend and cousin, Sterling.

Now Ruby’s life consists of serving as Gran’s personal errand girl, avoiding her manipulative stepfamily, refusing to speak to Sterling, and spending most of her time in the creepy attic room she’s been banished to ever since “The Steps” moved in.

Her only moments of joy come from spending time with the Chessies at school. Ruby is a chess prodigy—the queen of strategy—and when Gran’s prized pink diamond ring goes missing, those skills move beyond the board. The theft launches Ruby into a full-scale investigation that uncovers hidden truths about her mother’s death, Gran’s real motivations, and the Steps’ true colors.

As secrets unravel and loyalties shatter, everything comes to light—and the truth is shocking. Could the dynasty’s downfall finally lead to Ruby’s freedom and happiness? Or will the destruction of the Vossen family destroy the last pieces of Ruby’s world?

You might like this book if you like:

• Chess/strategy card games

• solving mysteries

• Books like: Truly Devious, Freaky Green Eyes, As Simple as Snow, Blue Is for Nightmares

• Shows like: Riverdale, One of Us is Lying, Lockdown, Pretty Little Liars, The Society

• Movies like: Enola Holmes, Knives Out, Inheritance, Searching, Missing

  
  

Other books written by this author: Flipped, The Running Dream, Wild Bird, Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief series, Runaway

Content

• Language: none

• Sex/Romance: The main character expresses that she has a crush on a boy. She also finds a pregnancy test in the trash, and there are allusions to a girl getting an abortion.

• Violence/Scariness: A family rivalry leads to lots of scenes of emotional/verbal abuse. Family tension between parents, children, and stepchildren could be triggering to readers. This tension even leads to allusions to the main character's father killing her mother. There are also intense scenes, including robbery, arson, and attempted murder.

• Drinking/Smoking/Drugs: A dog is poisoned and killed. The main character is drugged and falls unconscious.

  
  

Book Talk Read Aloud Section

*What is a book talk? (Watch a how to video here. Read my blog post here)

If you have the physical book, read pages 1-6 (chapter 1)

If you don't, read the same pages in the Kindle reading sample here.