young adult

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli | Review

aquapages // eline6 Comments

Genre: contemporary young adult, lgbt

Pages: 325

 

Synopsis

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised.

With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met.

My thoughts

Rating out of five:

fem

“So here’s the thing: Simon means “the one who hears” and Spier means “the one who watches.” Which means I was basically destined to be nosy.”

It’s the best coming out story I’ve read, I think, and this is from a person who tries to avoid them. And it’s a book with so much more than that as well, with a main character with questions that everyone can see themselves in. It’s a young adult book that’s actually relatable to teenagers, not just filled with abbreviations like lmfao and things that seem like a parody of youth culture (on that thought – will tide pods every make it into a ya book?).

 

“But I’m tired of coming out. All I ever do is come out. I try not to change, but I keep changing, in all these tiny ways. I get a girlfriend. I have a beer. And every freaking time, I have to reintroduce myself to the universe all over again.”

Parts made me feel lonely along with the main character. Overall it has incredibly clever and witty writing. I loved the themes that comes up, especially Simon feeling like he was “not allowed to change”, as a person it’s easy to label your identity or have others do so to a fault, where you think you are the same as your interest or your habits, which you now can’t change. Identity is a weird concept in general, and this book put just how weird it is into words.

 

“He talked about the ocean between people. And how the whole point of everything is to find a shore worth swimming to. I mean, I just had to know him.”

The romance was pretty lovely as well, though the friendships takes more place in this book, along with the mystery of finding out who Blue is. I just love that there’s published more gay books all the time, especially cute ones along with all the angst. I’m looking forward to seeing the movie adaption soon.

 

more favourite quotes

But Creekwood’s zero tolerance bullying policy is enforced about as strictly as the freaking dress code.

In this moment, all I want is for things to feel like Christmas again. I want it to feel how it used to feel.

“I didn’t know you drink coffee.” Okay, this. She does this every freaking time. Both of them. They put me in a box, and every time I try to nudge the lid open, they slam it back down. It’s like nothing about me is allowed to change. “Well, I do.”

Nothing is worse than the secret humiliation of being insulted by proxy.

The Art of Escaping by Erin Callahan | Review

aquapages // eline4 Comments

Genre: contemporary young adult, has gay characters

Pages: 320

Synopsis

Mattie tries to hide her passion with escapalogism from her family, friends and classmates. She has one best friend, Stella, who leaves for boarding school for the summer. Her anxiety for college applications and being completely alone for two months propells her into finding and starting her project. She’s been watching videos of artists like Harry Houdini for a long time, and she goes to find Miyu, the reclusive daughter of another famous escape-artist. Her loft if full of equipment, but the training is challenging and sometimes dangerous. There’s lots of locks to be picked and a submersion tank to dust off.

Mattie learns of her potential, of what she can do if she throws herself into her passion onstage, finding a community who cheer and heckle her. But then her worst fear comes true, someone she knows finds out. She imagines her new separated worlds crumbling. It helps when she realizes other teenagers are also trying to figure out themselves and carrying secrets.

My thoughts

Rating out of five:

fire

I went into this book without expectation and it blew me away with its witty dialogue, truth on friendship and characters being passionate about their interest (which is possibly my favourite thing).

It was an entertaining read, Mattie and her friends were so well-written and I never could’ve imagined how real their characters or world would feel. It’s a good plot, I especially liked how things in everyones life built up to each of Mattie’s performances on stage. Which for the record was in true magician style with anxious assistants and a baffled crowd, where I wanted to clap for her myself in relief.

Miyu goes from being just an obvious mentor to becoming a whole human being as I learned more about her, she kind of transformed in front of my eyes in a way that facinated me. At the beginning I did not care about the small paragraphs about her mother’s life, then as I realized what they were it gave the book some nice details along with giving another perspective, the story was no longer just about Mattie, but had become bigger.

I can’t get past how painfully relatable Mattie’s thoughts and attempts at friendships was. In books like this some big events happens that forces the introverted character to come out of her shell, but I really liked how in this book it was a choice. It was definitely started by smaller things happening, like Stella going away for the summer and trying to find out what she was passionate about before big decisions like college. But it was Mattie herself who chose to put herself out there, to go to Miyu and ask for training. The way it went down was actually inspiring, especially for someone who keeps her interests very to herself.

The official release date of this book is June 19th. I need more young adult books with the realness I’ve found in this book along with Maureen Johnsons “Truly Devious” and Becky Albertallis “Simon vs. the homo sapiens agenda”. They’re all very different books plot-wise, but to me they felt very similiar in style and how relatable they were written, in a genuine way I wish more ya had. Genuine characters that could’ve been actual teenagers, I hope it becomes even less of an exception in young adult books.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

*some more discussion and spoilers below this*

There’s a couple of things that bothered me, and I don’t know how to explain them without spoiling a few things. There’s this string of events that drives the plot, mainly started by Mattie choosing to go to Miyu and get really into escapologism. And somehow it ends up with bringing them all together, which is fine, but one of the last performances leads everyone to end up with someone. Everything always works out in the rest of the book as well, in a way that took me out of it at points. Everything bad that happens I can think of, like Will being outed, turns into something that propell further actions. Also the friend group talk about being awkward people, yet everyone knows what to say in any situation, which creates a split in my perception of them.

That said, everything good in the book heavily outweighs this, and I would completely recommend it to anyone looking for an entertaining young adult story about finding oneself. It seems like a perfect summer read as well.

Books I Loved But Will Never Re-Read | Top Ten Tuesday

aquapages // eline5 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl to bring bookish friends together. A new topic is posted each week. 

TTT

Turns out, most of the books I’ll never reread is because I read them years ago, as a child or in my early teens and don’t want to judge their quality now. I think that leaving some of them alone is the best way to honour the choices I made and what I liked then. Also there’s other reasons, for examples there’s some beautiful or emotional memories I have attached to certain places and I want to keep those.

The Gone Series by Michael Grant

  • Book 7 is out after four year break, needless to say I started this series a long time ago, the first book came out in 2008. I’ll give it a chance for nostalgia’s sake, but I’m not rereading this series to catch up again.

Night School series by C. J. Daughtery

  • I had trouble reading the last book of this series, I found it an exciting ya spy-ish read and is torn between not wanting it to end and being a bit bored

Heist Society by Ally Carter

  • A fantastic young adult mystery and heist series which I would still very much recommend, but I have no need to reread.

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

  • What would a top ten tuesday list be without a Sanderson book?
  • A good ya fantasy book, but not worth a reread for me

The Percy Jackson Series by Rick Riordan

  • Was a great series for me as a child, further fueling my interest for mythology, stories and especially greek gods. Most recently read the Heroes of Olympus and if that’s a pointer, I’ve grown out of these series. Won’t dare to ruin the magic rereading it and finding out, though I think the Heroes of Olympus is more unoriginal overall.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

  • Do I need to explain why this book is on this list? The movies and hype ruined it for me, as they did with Divergent, I won’t reread it to find out just how much.

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

  • Liked it when I first read it, but later books in the series made it not worth the reread.

Vampirates series by Justin Somper

  •  Once upon a time I read a series with pirates that sometimes were turned into vampires and two twins who wanted to spend their life at sea. I had never found a book that perfect for me, in norwegian because this was before I learned a lot of english, with a strong female character as well. I will definitely reread it one time out of curiosity, so not never, but it deserved its place on this list.

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

  • I read this book in summer, visiting one place, a family summer house that reminded me a lot of the summer house of this story. This book will now forever be linked to that place, and I hope to find new book experiences like that.

The first three books of the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik

  • I loved this series with dragons and war between nations. Novik has since written books like Uprooted and has a new release soon. So I searched for her and realized there exists SIX other books in this series! How did this go me by? I read the first three books translated to norwegian at my library, and these just never appeared. I’ll never reread the three first books because there’s a slim chance I’ll ever finish it at all if she’s going to continue releasing those amazing fairytale-inspired books as Uprooted.

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff | Review

aquapages // eline4 Comments

Pages: 430
Genre: fantasy, young adult

My thoughts

Rating out of five:

to

This story has an incredible average review rating, but I was terribly bored, found the plot flat and some aspects idiotic. This hardcover is nice though. It starts with a simple fantasy concept; an orphan girl enrolling in an assassin academy where there’s as much chance of dying as of graduating, especially as someone is murdered by a fellow student and she got to figure out who (even if they’re all killers). Also she can’t forget why she came there; to train until she’s strong enough to take down the Senate who killed her father, after convicting him as a traitor. Okay, maybe not so simple, but not the most original story either. And that’s what this book plays on, because every small detail is done better than most of the young adult fantasy heroine books I’ve read.

“Forget the girl who had everything. She died when her father did.“
“But I–”
“Nothing is where you start. Own nothing. Know nothing.”
“But why would I want to do that?”
His smile made her smile in return.
“Because then you can do anything.”

It also succeed with the characters and their interactions within the school. Mia, the main character, has lost everything but her life and snarky humour, and has to use her mind as she navigates this new enviroment where everyone is dangerous. Even the library will kill you. I can’t decide if I like that the characters are built on archetypes like “mean girl”, “brutal teacher”, “evil twins”, “hot boy”, but that they all are murderous versions who don’t behave as expected. It still feels too easy and unoriginal.

 

That said, a few things really bothered me;

  • ASTERIX! FREAKING EVERYWHERE. Especially at the beginning. You think I’m kidding, but more than once the author covered more than half the page. And 1/10 of them is related to the plot so I have to read them just in case. Why u doing this?? Usually I like the extra voice these notes bring, but here it was too much too soon and interrupted the pace.

 

  • You don’t need to read the whole book. At least not to follow the plot. Never thought I would say this, but the writing is so slow and filled with unecessary words that for the middle part of this book you can read the first and last sentence of a paragraph and still follow the plot. Trust me, I tried.

 

  • I didn’t realize the problem reading it, but there’s* a discussion of this book being problematic in regards to possible links between the book’s dweymeri people and the maori. If you’re curious, do a google search and you’ll find blogs better qualified to answer it than me. From the little I’ve seen the author was kind of a jerk about it on twitter trying to explain they’re not based on the same group of people. But hey, I haven’t looked into whether or not he got a lot of shit for it either. I’m all for people making their own critical choices when supporting books, and it’s good to be aware of these things. I believe that he can have created a world with negative views on for example mixed kids and enforcing certain stereotypes without that being a unique thing for this book. It’s a problem in fantasy and world-building in general. There’s plenty of other reasons not to read this book, the way I see it, mostly because it’s boring and unecessary large. But it’s definitely a discussion worth being loud about.

*disclaimer: i wrote this review some time back and at the time it very much was a discussion around this book. how much the word problematic has been overused since then, but even with some more thought in this case it applies well. from what i’ve seen the plotpoints of racism are not outright terribly wrong, but seen as problematic from many and at the very least unecessary.

The last hundred pages of this book was the best, but it was not worth it. While I really loved the new twist on young assassin heroine Mia’ with her shadow-abilities and the not-cat, I just don’t think I’ll read the next book when it comes out. I used sixteen days to get through this one, which is a long time for me. It had great solutions to problems already in young adult fantasy books, but was blind to the new problems it created for itself. I won’t waste time on the next books, might sound harsh, but based on the amount of unecessary lines alone, I couldn’t do it.

 

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green | Review

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Pages: 290

Genre: young adult, contemporary, mental health

Synopsis

Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett’s son, Davis.

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

In his long-awaited return, John Green, the acclaimed, award-winning author of Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, shares Aza’s story with shattering, unflinching clarity in this brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship.

My thoughts

Rating out of five:

fem

“The thing about a spiral is, if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. It just keeps tightening, infinitely.”

Ahh I loved this book, I read it in a day about a week after the release. And I haven’t been able to write a review since because of the feelings (and physics).*

I cried so much for the first time in a while because this story is so moving and the characters felt so real, and they all had their problems. Of course, I want to side with Aza, because that’s the perspective you follow through the book. But the book doesn’t let me, it points out the people who feel hurt by Aza. It was good to represent how people doesn’t automatically understand each other, it demands a lot of willingness, effort and communications from all parts. Especially when it comes to anything like illness. I don’t know much about OCD, but from all I’ve heard this book is a good representation of it. Obviously, OCD doesn’t manifest in only one form, but I still felt like I learned a lot about thought spirals and how obsessiveness can manifest itself.

If I would give any negative criticism of this book, it would be that it’s difficult at the beginning to distinguish John Green’s voice as the author and Aza’s narrative. The problem vanished for me after a while, which I can’t really explain, might be getting used to it, might be getting to know her better. I do not agree with the characters being too mature, we need that as well in young adult novels. I feel like it’s needed to say this is not a mystery novel, a disappearance is a element of the plot, but it doesn’t drive it. If you want that I would recommend “Truly Devious” by Maureen Johnson.

It’s one thing to know of how serious mental illness can be, it’s something completely different to get it (literally) spelled out and in your face. I especially liked the part at the end, in the darkness, where Aza tries to explain her thoughts and fears. I’ve followed vlogbrothers for years, and you can kind-of notice when John is worse than normal, but not to what degree. It was a really positive surprise to realize how open, informing and serious he was about displaying OCD after not having gone into depth about it for so long.

“Turtles all the way down” also has humour and a good balance between darker and lighter aspects, but from the beginning it shows how it’s all intertwined. It’s simply a brilliant book, the writing, characters, mystery and depth is all there. Would completely recommend, it’s worth all the hype it’s getting.

*this was originally written some time ago, a few weeks after the release

SPOILERS: have you checked the inside of the book jacket?

*

*

 

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton | Review

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Pages: 320

Genre: this is honestly a difficult book to place. magical realism?

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Summary

Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava—in all other ways a normal girl—is born with the wings of a bird.

In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naïve to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the Summer Solstice celebration.

That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo.

My thoughts

Rating out of five:

fire

 

– the plot – 

The synopsis, along with the perfectly fitting long title, creates the idea that this is a book about Ava Lavender. It’s simply not, for the most part. More than the first half of the book is about the family she’s a descendant from: with their strange abilities and being caught up in one tragedy after another. We’re learning about the generations before her, but when Ava and her story came into this world, it felt like a lot rested on her shoulders. The family, this story, they all needed something good.

Ava Lavender is the relatable one, it’s why her name is in the title. It is a young adult novel after all, not a tragedy or historical family drama. But maybe it should have been. This book would have been better as a more complete story about her ancestors. Ariel (check her out if you haven’t!) said this book was more like a fairy tale than magical realism, because in magical realism the magic usually goes unnoticed, while here Ava’s wings marks her as different. The ancestors had a better sense of smell and other, much stranger and more twisted abilities, and no one questioned it. That’s what I loved most about this book, that feeling when I’m sitting here like: that’s fucked up, but look at them, they keep going as if nothing ever happened.

 

– some confusion –

Also, let’s talk about how it’s a waste of potential when a kid have these crazy ancestors, are born with wings (!!), and you make her feel isolated and excluded from the rest of the world because of them. I realize this is an important message, but any person written with a mental or physical illness or a handicap could have made that point in a clearer way. Was it really necessary to give a girl wings to make that point? Of course, the wings are surely some kind of symbol, and they helped the plot unfold later on, but that didn’t help my frustration.

– the writing –

The strange and beautiful sorrows of Ava Lavender had a lot of lovely moments and details. The writing style was alive, but dreamy, in a way I loved. I don’t know how it is possible to connect words in such a way it becomes this level of magical, and I was completely fascinated by it. Just for that thing alone, this book is absoloutly worth reading.

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I enjoyed this book. However, I still feel it natural to divide it into before Ava Lavender and after. And I liked before a lot better. Not just because of Ava, she’s nice enough, but because of her mom and how the whole family at that time transformed into something like a picture, stuck in the memory of what it once was. It won’t make much sense until you read it, and I highly recommend it.

 

– more favourite quotes – 

“Summer rain smelled like newly clipped grass, like mouths stained red with berry juice—blueberries, raspberries, blackberries.”

“While the thought of being dead seemed appealing, the actual act of dying did not. Dying required too much action.”

“I found it ironic that I should be blessed with wings and yet feel so constrained, so trapped. It was because of my condition, I believe, that I noticed life’s ironies a bit more often than the average person. I collected them: how love arrived when you least expected it, how someone who said he didn’t want to hurt you eventually would.”

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin | Review

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Pages: 452
Genre: young adult, paranormal
md

Synopsis

This book is confusing af, but it starts simple enough with a friendgroup who goes to an abandoned building for fun, but it suddenly collapses on top of them and kills everyone but Mara Dyer, the main character. She wakes up in a hospital, disoriented and not able to recall anything of the incident. But no one else has answers to what happened either. What they know is that four teenagers went in, but only one came out.

Struggling with memoryloss and PTSD, Mara convinces her family to move away, talking about fresh beginnings and less reminders, but not really believing it herself. She’s having flashbacks and hallucinates, memories of her and her two dead friends and boyfriend constantly haunting her dreams. Slowly, but surely her memories seem to return, but she doesn’t know how to make sense of it all.

My thoughts

Rating out of five:

to

 

This book has more psychological elements than paranormal ones, which was okay, but confusing for the main part of this story. It’s written to be all mysterious, but honestly I just grew impatient and annoyed. Mara believes she’s going crazy, but won’t immediately find help because of her overprotective mom who seems to control much in her life. At first I found it a bit extreme as I realize she needs help to function, but she’s already back at school so how bad can she be? But when shit goes down, I realized Mara might need more supervising than what is shown from her own unreliable narrative.

And she should not be in school full-time! How would anyone allow it, hadn’t it been for the sake of the story and her love interest being there? As Mara slowly works out her new life, or pretend to, she meets a mysterious boy named Noah Shaw. She is repeatedly warned against him for his reputation of dating and dumping girls. I won’t comment on this relationship anymore than I wouldn’t read this book for the romance because it’s very stereotype “bad boy turns good for The One Girl” with a twist or two. Still, even if it’s nice twists and I like Noah in himself, they don’t really work good together. Mostly he’s just there, saying a few lines and filling out the plot when necessary.

I feared for a long time this book would be all stereotype high school drama, because it was clearly heading that way, but right before I laid the book down in defeat strange things started to happen around Mara Dyer. The book was back on track! When the plot twist came I was done again; I saw it long time coming and it couldn’t have been more expected. If you’ve read a couple of paranormal ya I think you’ll figure it out. It’s not a bad twist, it just reflects the biggest problem of this book – it’s predictable. Some occurences might be unexpected and interesting, but the plot and story as whole goes in a boring straight line.

There’s two more books in this series, which could turn out better now that it took 452 pages to reveal one secret and lay the base of the story, which really has just been “high school drama with paranormal stuff somewhere”. I don’t think I want to read two more books like that. The title is good; “The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer” is just what happens in this book, but nothing more. Did you like this book? Is the second and third book better?

Storm Glass by Maria V. Snyder | Review

aquapages // eline1 Comment

Pages: 490

Genre: young adult, fantasy

sg

Synopsis

From the author of the poison study series, it’s a new fantasy book with a world where magic can be stored in glass. The Stormdancers are able to capture storms in glass orbs, but someone is killing them and destroying the storages in order to stop it. Opal Cowan, a glassmaker and magician, is brought in to prevent the disasterous attacks, but her skills might not be enough. Much is needed to be learned about the connection between glass and magic, and it not easy to gather that information with the most skilled magicians dead and the others being rather mysterious. To help and stay safe, Opal needs to learn the reason behind the attacks and how to stop them.

My thoughts

Rating out of five:

to

I’ve always been fascinated by glassblowing and it was interesting to read a fantasy book that revolved around it. It’s still only an average book in all other aspects; writing, plot, characters, romance … it’s nothing special. Poison study did so well, and both this series and the healer series seems to be trying (and failing) at mimicking that sucess without creating the same story. Instead of a taster for a king, the girl is a glassmaker or healer, the love interests is more bland and the same with the main girl Opal. To not make her easily compared to the original kick-ass Yelena, why not make Opal unsure of herself always. Also, storm metaphors are nice the first five times or so, after 300 more pages with it I’m out.

I’m not giving these series a third chance for now. It’s not for me. I do love the glassblowing aspect though, and have been looking for books with it. Have you read any other books with glassblowing? I remember reading the fiction book “The glassblower from Milano” by Marina Fiorato many years ago (I don’t really remember it at all) and liking it, but I think that’s the only other book.

Ilusions of Fate by Kiersten White | Review

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Pages: 278
Genre: fantasy, young adult

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“Perhaps if you gave the sun a bit more attention, it would be flattered and come out more often.” 

Synopsis

Jessamin has been an outcast since she moved from her island home of Melei to the dreary country of Albion. Everything changes when she meets Finn, a gorgeous, enigmatic young lord who introduces her to the secret world of Albion’s nobility, a world that has everything Jessamin doesn’t—power, money, status…and magic. But Finn has secrets of his own, dangerous secrets that the vicious Lord Downpike will do anything to possess. Unless Jessamin, armed only with her wits and her determination, can stop him.

My thoughts

tre

My feelings about this book told by the book itself: “I don’t dislike them, nor do I like them. I’ve never understood why one must love children (magical plots) because they are (have lots of all-powerful alpha men behaving like) children.” Edited that quote a bit oops, not that the original quote with children isn’t too true. Fortunately for me, Jessamin feel the same way about the guys, at least at first.

“Paths do not only go one way. We choose which direction to take. I refuse to believe that any outside forces can determine the course of my life.” 

It’s supposedly a historical fiction (with a non-existing country?), or at least it’s placed in England in another time where women didn’t have rights and especially not the biracial ones from foreign countries, who blackmailed their white rich dad to get an education (u go girl).

“He shakes his head dismissively, and I hate him for it. He has dismissed my entire life with that one gesture, whether intentional or not.”

Sometimes Jessamin seems clever and capable, making me want to laugh in glee, but mostly she’s acting even more like kid than the rich bastards involving her in their oh-so-powerful invisible magic war. Can’t even remember what the fighting was about, that’s how much the book explained it. Jessamine’s friendship with the other girl was what got me through that last part. A huge thank you to Kiersten White for not making her the typical “mean girl”.

This book is interesting and the ravens are cool and all, but it doesn’t bring much new. Perhaps if the writing had been better, or the characters less inconsistent? It handles the subjects of politics and racism pretty well, but… it lacks a certain flow and I’m sorry to say the beautiful cover doesn’t match with the story between them.

 

 

All Fall Down by Ally Carter | Review

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Pages: 250

Genre: young adult – mystery

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Synopsis

Grace is absolutely certain of three things:

1. She isn’t crazy. 2. Her mother was murdered. 3. Someday she’s going to find the man with the scar, and then she is going to make him pay.

My thoughts 

tre

“All Fall Down” is overall a good young adult book with lots of action, likeable and mysterious characters and plot twists. While I didn’t find it as entertaining as the Heist society, or the mysteries as well though out as those of the Gallagher girls, it’s a nice beginning of a new series by Ally Carter.

The plot gets a slow, hesitant applause from me. A girl who no one believe when she says someone killed her mother? Sure. Living at a embassy? Better. Spying? Great concept. The characters? Mixed feelings. Predictability? Halfway into the book I could guess the ending, even if I was only partly right.

The flow of the book wasn’t like it should have been either. Some places the writing got messy because suddenly a lot of action needed to happen simultaneously. It’s especially a problem towards the ending. I have read worse, but it throws you off, especially for younger readers.

“Keep your chin up. Eventually, you will meet someone who cares about your opinion. I’m so sorry I’m not her.” 

That quote describes Grace pretty well. I’ve always liked Ally Carter’s previous characters and Grace is no exception. She’s a sarcastic, brave, spontanious, witty and a paranoid person. Really, she jumps off brick walls into different countries. What is there not to like? However, she’s also troubled, in a way that added something to the story. First I thought she got panick attacks, which she does in a way, but it’s more like flashbacks. I don’t know if that was the best way to tell this story, but it works? Kind of. Something else I miss is the relationship between the characters. There are so much potential there. COME ON, they’re embassy kids. From all over the world, all different kids stuck in the same situation. The diversity, stories, cultures and friendships that could have been exchanged. But you really don’t get to hear a lot from them. Mostly it’s because Grace is stuck in her own head, which I can understand, but I feel like they haven’t got enough time together. Perhaps in the next book. Right now the other kids seem more like ghosts who follows her, but only because they’re bored.

There are also a few very cheesy elements in this book, like the fine line between peace and war. Could really this bunch of kids, actually teenagers – they just act like kids, start a war by running around? The adults seem to think so, but they don’t do anything about it. Except for those cheesy conversations and “don’t worry about it”. I’m not buying it.

I want to say I just felt a little too old for this book, but my eleven-year-old self would definitely like this book. It’s well-written in places, in others it seems unfinished. The plot is built on too many assumptions for it to feel remotely real. Teenagers, even if they act like kids, aren’t that far off from the rest of the world as this book make it seem. Especially not if they’ve grown up around dimplomats, I would believe. Still, I’ll read the next book when it comes out.