Spy Society review

Spy Society (Also know as Also Known As)
Robin Benway
June 18th (UK)
Simon & Schuster

Being a 16-year-old safecracker and active-duty daughter of international spies has its moments, good and bad. Pros: Seeing the world one crime-solving adventure at a time. Having parents with super cool jobs. Cons: Never staying in one place long enough to have friends or a boyfriend. But for Maggie Silver, the biggest perk of all has been avoiding high school and the accompanying cliques, bad lunches, and frustratingly simple locker combinations.

Then Maggie and her parents are sent to New York for her first solo assignment, and all of that changes. She'll need to attend a private school, avoid the temptation to hack the school's security system, and befriend one aggravatingly cute Jesse Oliver to gain the essential information she needs to crack the case . . . all while trying not to blow her cover.

Ever since the Gallagher Girls series finished, I've been eager to find some other books to fill the hole in my life that that series left. Spy Society certainly filled that hole. It was fun, it was funny, it was about spies. What more do I need in my life?

Like in all of Robin Benway's books (I love Robin Benway), I loved the characters and they were probably my favourite part of the book. Maggie was absolutely hilarious. She was so overdramatic and just funny and smart and such a fun character to spend time with. And her parents, too! I do love it when there are parents it books and they're kind of just normal parents even if they are spies and I loved their family love. And also Angelo, who is their family friend who also works for the Collective who is the greatest and if anything bad happens to him I will probably cry.

Also (and yes, I'm still going on about the characters. Seriously, if you're looking for one author who is just always on point with brilliant characters that you just love, look no further than Robin Benway) I completely adored Roux. She was so not who I was expecting her to be at the start of the book. And somehow she was even more melodramatic and hilarious than Maggie, and the two's friendship was just awesome. Plus, I really liked the romance between Maggie and Jesse. When I started it, I was kind of worried that it would be just like reading the first Gallagher Girls book all over again, which would have been fine, but I wanted something a bit different. And it was.

Spy Society definitely felt more character driven to me, but the plot was still really fun, and I loved the idea behind it of a girl who has been a spy all her life, cracking safes, who's never really had friends or been around normal people being sent for her first mission in a high school. There was a good balance between the spy stuff and the normal teen stuff and Maggie adjusting to high school and it was just a whole load of fun. Plus there was a bit of action and a helicopter in it, so yeah. I suspect that the next book is going to be even better.

Yeah, I thought that Spy Society was an incredibly enjoyable read and the perfect follow on if you're also looking for something Gallagher Girls-ish. The characters are all wonderful, the plot is good and pacy and there's loads of humour in it, too.