Turns out this is like book 4 in a series, but I didn't know that at the time I grabbed it off the library shelf. However, as with good books-in-series, I wasn't totally lost. True, I didn't know who anyone was, but that didn't matter; the story held up without prior series knowledge.
Anyway, it was fun! I did have a bit of a hard time believing that MI6 would actually hire a bunch of teens and tweens as spies, but it's the series premise, and it wasn't too much of an ordeal to suspend my disbelief. The plot involves cyberattacks and museum heists and a lot of hacking, which seems to be portrayed more realistically than most times; instead of videogame hacking minigames or anything like that, it's more "stick a virus-laden thumbdrive into the computer".
Also, all the main characters have code names that are just city names. The one this book focused on is called Kat; it's short for Kathmandu, but I kept thinking it was short for Katherine. The others are Paris (who's a boy, despite his code name tripping me up a lot), Sydney (a rather loud girl with strong opinions who carries around both hairspray and explosives), Rio (who's good at sleight of hand and stuff like that), and Brooklyn (le hacker). Also, they add another member partway through the book: Robert, the actual child of the guy who adopted all the rest of the main characters.
Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for scary-ish scenes and explosions. It'd probably make a fun stealth game, although they'd probably de-realistic the hacking because "stick a virus-laden thumbdrive into the computer" just isn't as fun as a hacking minigame.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. I liked most of the characters, and the plot kept me engaged, and that is almost assuredly the single most stereotypical-book-review sentence I've ever said on this blog. All of this is a long wind-up to make the fact that I rated it 4 stars a tad more interesting.
(Endnote: I kind of want to go read the other three books in the series now.)
Paris was the guy who stole Helen of Troy and married her, so it's not super weird that the Paris here is a guy.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I had that pointed out to me. I completely forgot about that Paris when I was reading the book, though,
Deletel love this bit, "but it's the series premise, and it wasn't too much of an ordeal to suspend my disbelief." So much better than saying, "it's the main idea and it wasn't too hard for me to believe it"
ReplyDeleteThank you!
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