![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frostedoverroseThis book series involves three (soon to be four) roommates being trained to be spies at an highly elite female-only boarding school. They learn how to fight, see the different things in pictures with just a glimpse, learn how to disguise themselves, learn different languages, use different spy gear, hack into computers, take rides in helicopters... So, what is the problem with this book?
There's a shoehorned romance with our protagonist and some bland, boring guy who can’t know the “truth” behind Gallagher Academy and the real story behind Cammie. So shoehorned romance and a large secret behind Cammie. At least it’s not a paranormal romance and the guy isn’t an abusive douche bag, fuckwit.
This hexalogy was written in 2006 to 2013. Each book takes place during a semester, starting with Cammie’s sophomore year, ending with her graduation.
Moving on...let’s look at the cover.
It’s not too bad to be honest. Not eye catching, except for the plaid edge and the emblem on the vest is eye-catching, especially when it was on the back. The lettering on Love and Kill is in ransom lettering, despite no ransom occurring. Interesting fact, there’s different colored plaid edges and skirts for the books because Ally Carter didn’t want her readers to get confused on if they read the sequel or not if it was all the same colors.
Okay, let’s get on with the dedication:
In memory of
Ellen Moore Balarzs,
a true Gallagher Girl.
I’m not entirely sure who Ellen Moore Balarzs is, or what made her a “true Gallagher Girl”, but I feel weird about the fact that Ally Carter marked this woman as a “Gallagher Girl” from “Gallagher Academy,” which is a school for spies. I think Ellen Moore Balarzs was in the Women’s Corps or the army, but I can’t be sure and now I feel like a douche bag for criticizing it, but a made-up school? Really?
Okay moving on. We start the chapter with this line:
I suppose a lot of teenage girls feel invisible sometimes, like they just disappear. Well, that’s me—Cammie the Chameleon. But I’m luckier than most because, at my school, that’s considered cool.
I go to a school for spies.
Suetiful All Along: 1
That’s the count when Cammie crams the fact that she’s this super special snowflake spy down our throats and that she’s not like other normal girls because, you know, she’s a spy in training. It gets a little worse in later books.
Cammie tells us that the cover-story for Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is that it’s actually a school for geniuses — not spies. Emphasis is hers. We’re told the school allows its students to pursue any career that benefits from their exceptional education. We’re also told that when a school tells you that, then teaches you encryption and fourteen different languages, the Gallagher Girls know lip service when they see it, sort of like big tobacco telling young kids not to smoke. I truly have no clue what that even means.
We’re told that Cammie’s mother rolls her eyes when Cammie calls it a spy school, doesn’t correct Cammie, that her mom is the headmistress of Gallagher Academy, and Headmistress Morgan is a former CIA agent.
Cammie tells us that it was her mother’s idea for her to write “this”, her first Covert Operations Report, to summarize what happened during last semester.
Apparently, Headmistress Morgan tells “us”, I’m guessing the students that the hardest part of being a spy is the paperwork.
After all, when you’re on a plane home from Istanbul with a nuclear warhead in a hatbox, the last thing you want to do is write a report about it. So that’s why I’m writing this — for the practice.
Wow, Cammie’s practice “Covert Operations Reports” is more along the lines of a “book” than a “report”. Also, her “report” is kind of rambly too.
I know, it’s just a book and that it’s “practice” and all, but still.
We’re told this:
If you’ve got a Level Four clearance or higher, you probably know all about us Gallagher Girls, since we’ve been around for more than a hundred years (the school, not me—I’ll turn sixteen next month!).
Wow, “Cammie” thanks for exposing your school and all.
I’m being sarcastic by the way.
We’re told that if we don’t have a “Level Four clearance” we believe that the Gallagher Academy is an urban spy myth like jet packs and invisible suits. If we drive by the ivy covered walls, look at the gorgeous mansion, the manicured grounds, we just believe that the “snooty boarding school” is for bored rich heiresses with no other place to go.
*facepalm*
*looks at that again*
*facepalm even harder*
Okay, so Cammie is telling me that I would instantly believe that this is a place for “rich bored heiresses with no place to go”, instead of a private school for rich girl geniuses like you told me?
Why would I think that anyway? Does this school have some technology to rewire my line of thinking every time that I look at it?
Also, I have to have a Level Four Clearance before I’m let in on the fact that this school exists? So, if I’m on Level Three and happened to drive by this school, I would think that this place is for rich bored heiresses, and then I’m let in on Level Four, I’m told the true story behind this school? I don’t get it.
What happens if you talk to a recent graduate of Gallagher Academy and you ask her where she graduated from, as a line of conversation? So, they tell you that they came from Gallagher Academy and then you learn that it’s a spy school once you hit Level Four.
That’s just weird. Wouldn’t it be better to be Level One so you don’t get your ass handed to you by a Gallagher Girl who you made fun of because she came from a “snooty school” and that she's a rich girl who probably never worked a day in her life? Total embarrassment, even if there’s a woman who worked her ass off to become a spy, instead of getting the position handed to her because of Gallagher Academy.
Also are all the female spies in that world Gallagher Girls or what? What do those women think of Gallagher Girls? Do they resent them? Is there an all-female rival school out there, especially in other parts of the world like in Harry Potter? Is Gallagher Academy the only spy-school?
And I have all these questions on the second page. I read this series from beginning to conclusion. I reread this book a few times and none of those questions were answered, so world-building potential was wasted. I’m not saying that Ally Carter should go into Rick Riordan levels of world-building, but she should give it a stand-alone spin off for these unanswered questions.
I’m purposely excluding Cross My Heart and Hope To Spy, by the way, because I’m not diving into that mess yet, until I get to it, for those who have read the series when it came out.
Okay, moving on. We’re told that the Gallagher Girls don’t mind the cover-up story, which is why the citizens of Roseville, Virginia don’t think twice about the long line of limousines that entered Gallagher Academy last September.
Cammie is on a window seat on the third floor of the mansion watching as cars materialize from “blankets of green foliage” and turn into the wrought-iron gates.
The driveway is half a mile long and curves through hills, looking harmless as the yellow brick road from Wizard of Oz. Also the road is equipped with laser beams that read tire treads, sensors that check for explosives, and there’s an entire section that can open up and swallow a truck whole. In parenthesis, Cammie states that if you think that’s dangerous, don’t get her started about the pond.
Cammie wraps her arms around her knees and looks out the wavy window. The red velvet curtains were drawn around the tiny alcove and she gets a weird sense of peace. She knows that in twenty minutes, the halls would be filled with girls, music is going to be blaring, and Cammie is going to go from an only child to one of a hundred, so she’s going to savor the silence while it lasts.
Apparently, to prove her point, a loud blast and the smell of burning hair comes up the main stairs from the second floor Hall of History. It’s followed by Professor Buckingham’s “distinguished” voice of the woman yelling at some girls that she told them not to touch... something.
The smell got worse, and one of the seventh graders was probably still on fire, because Professor Buckingham yelled, “Stand still. Stand still, I say!”
Did I mention that this book is supposed to be a romantic-comedy? So, you’re supposed to be laughing.
Laugh, Damn It!: 1
A count for when something that seems serious is played for laughs. So that scene with the professor telling the girl on fire to stand still is supposed to be funny. I admit I laughed at it, but now I realize how fucking serious and worrying that really is. Holy shit, I hope that girl is okay.
Professor Buckingham says some cuss words in French and Cammie says that the seventh graders wouldn’t know what those words are until three semesters in. She remembers how every year during the new student orientation, one of the newbies gets cocky and tries to show off by grabbing the sword that Gillian Gallagher used to kill the guy that tried to Abraham Lincoln. Apparently it was the first guy that we never heard about.
But what the newbies aren’t told on their campus tour is that Gilly’s sword is charged with enough electricity to...well..light your hair on fire.
I just love the start of school.
Laugh, Damn It!: 2
They told you that this girl is on fire only to turn around to tell you that it catches hair on fire. Also, this school doesn’t tell them that this sword is loaded with electricity to catch your hair on fire? I could understand not saying that and girls getting a little cocky, but I would be pissed if my hair caught on fire. And this happens frequently to the point where Cammie knows that it happens every year to the point that she loves it. This happens once every year, so shouldn’t these people tell the newbies that this sword catches your hair on fire?
No Logic: 2
One for the Level Four Clearance and one for not telling the newbies that the sword will catch your hair on fire during tours, even though it happens every year, so they should tell them about it. But I guess it teaches these girls not to grab the sword?
We get a time skip with Cammie saying that she thinks “our” room used to be an attic at one point. It has cool dormers, oddly shaped windows, and little nooks and crannies where people can sit with their back to the wall to listen to thundering feet, and squeals of hellos.
Apparently, Cammie is sure that thundering feet and squeals of hellos are standard for boarding schools everywhere, except for the ones in Portugal and Farsi.
Out in the hall, Kim Lee was walking about her summer in Singapore while Tina Walters was busy declaring that Cairo is super cool and that Johannesburg wasn’t. Cammie tells us that her mother said the same thing when Cammie complained about how Tina’s parents were taking her to Africa over the summer, while Cammie stays with her dad’s parents on a ranch in Nebraska. She tells us that the experience wouldn’t help her break out of an enemy interrogation facility or disarm a dirty bomb.
Tina asks someone where Cammie is, but she doesn’t want to come out of her room until she comes up with a story that matches the international exploits of her classmates. 70% of her classmates are daughters of current or former government operatives - aka spies.
So, the government in this has no FBI agents, or NASA, or IRS people? Is it all just spies?
No Logic: 3
We’re told that some girl named Courtney Bauer spent a week in Paris, whose parents are both optometrists, so Cammie’s not eager to say that she spent three months right in the middle of North America, cleaning fish.
So, I’m guessing that Cammie never went to town in Nebraska, then? I’m sure that even ranch owners have to go to town for something. I’m sure that she waited at a train or bus station there to get to the ranch. She hadn’t stopped someone getting mugged? Anything? Come up with a story on meeting up with a guy? Talk about what Nebraska is like, Cammie. I’m sure those girls never went to Nebraska in their lives. I’m sure some girls would be interested in hearing what Nebraska is like, no matter how boring.
Holy shit, this girl must be boring then. No wonder we never get any details on her summer vacation.
Cammie decides to tell the girls about the time she was experimenting with average household items that can be used as weapons and accidentally decapitated a scarecrow. We get parenthesis with Cammie asking who knew that knitting needles can do that kind of damage.
Cammie, it was a scarecrow. Not a regular person who has meat, veins, and bone to cut through just to be decapitated. I’m sure I can decapitate a scarecrow with knitting needles, if I get it just right.
No Logic: 4
Cammie hears a distinct thud of luggage crashing into a wall and a soft, Southern voice saying, “Oh, Cammie...come out, come out, wherever you are.”
Cammie peers around the corner and sees her roommate Liz posing in a doorway, trying to look like Miss Alabama, but Liz bears a greater resemblance to a toothpick in capri pants and flip-flops. But Cammie tells us that Liz looks like a very red toothpick.
Ouch, that sunburn must hurt like hell.
Liz asks Cammie if she missed her. Cammie tells us that she did miss Liz, but she was afraid of hugging Liz, so Cammie asks what happened to Liz. Liz rolls her eyes and says that Cammie should never fall asleep by a pool in Alabama as if she knows better. Cammie says that Liz should, because they’re all geniuses and all.
Suetiful All Along: 2
I know it’s for Cammie, but I decided that I count every instance of how the Gallagher Girls are better than you because they’re spies, geniuses or whatever else Cammie will brag about at the time.
I will introduce We’re Spies as well, because the author likes to think that we’re idiots and forget that they go to a school for spies or every time the word spy or anything spy related will pop up pass the first chapter. I’m giving Chapter 1 a pass because it needs to be set up.
We’re told that age nine, Liz, had the highest score on the third-grade achievement tests ever.
Suetiful All Along: 3
We’re also told that the government keeps track of that kind of thing, so the summer before seventh grade, Liz’s parents got a visit from some big guys in dark suits and three months later, Liz was a Gallagher Girl, not the kill-a-man-with-her-bare-hands kind.
I want you to keep the “kill a man with her bare hands” thing in mind. It’s a bit of a plot point for book 4, by the way.
Cammie goes on saying that if she was ever on a mission, she would want her other roommate, Bex, with her, and Liz far, far away with a dozen computers and a chessboard.
So, these Gallagher Girls get to pick their own teammates? Do other spies pick their teammates as well, or are these Gallagher Girls special cases? What happens when Cammie needs to go on a mission and Liz and Bex are on their own missions at the time?
No Logic: 4
Cammie remembers that “fact” as Liz tried to throw her suitcase on her bed, but misses as she knocked down a bookcase, “demolishes” Cammie’s stereo, and flattens Cammie’s perfectly-scaled replica of a DNA that Cammie made out of papier-mâché in the eighth grade.
Liz is a clutz. Not the “Bella” or “Ana” clumsy version of cute, clumsy girl that’s used once or twice. In this case, it’s more played for laughs than anything. I have no clue how much sentimental value Cammie has over that DNA replica, but I’m guessing some since she has it in the dorm room.
Liz says “oopsy daisy” and covers her hand with her mouth. Cammie tells us that Liz knows how to cuss in fourteen different languages, but when faced with a “minor catastrophe” she says “oopsy daisy”.
Cammie doesn’t care how badly sunburnt Liz is, she just has to hug her.
We time skip to 6:30 in the evening with the girls dressed in their uniforms, they go down the stairs that spiral down into the foyer, gracefully. We’re told that their “hands slide down the smooth mahogany” banister.
Everyone was laughing (turns out my knitting needle story was a big hit), but Liz and I kept looking toward the door in the center of the atrium below.
Suetiful All Along: 4
Cammie is our protagonist, so of course her story would be a big hit with these girls, for some reason. Why would you think differently?
Liz whispers that maybe there was a problem with the plane or customs, and then she says that this “person” is just running late.
Cammie nods and continues glancing down at the foyer as if, on cue, Bex was going to burst through the doors, but the doors stay closed and Liz’s voice gets squeaky as she asks Cammie if she heard from Bex. Liz says that she hadn’t heard from her and then asks why they didn’t hear from Bex.
Cammie says that she would be surprised if they had heard from Bex and that as soon as Bex said that her parents were taking a leave of absence to spend the summer with her and Cammie knew that Bex wasn’t going to be much of a pen pal.
Leave it to Liz to come to a completely different conclusion.
Hey, come on. I’m a paranoid person at times who jumps to worst case scenarios at times. Going under an overpass? I worry that the thing is going to come down on us. Wait for a train to pass? That thing is going to come off the rails and smash into us. Driving after stopping at a red light, a car is going to T-Bone me, like what happened to my dad, when I was younger. (He’s alive by the way.)
Also, I’m not sure if I should really be worried for Bex or not. I haven’t gotten to know her character at all. In fact she was mentioned one time in the previous pages and that’s all. Cammie is just droning on in a monotone. There’s no sense of worrying from Cammie. There’s no heart racing, stomach churning, nothing from her. Liz’s voice is going squeaky, so we know she’s worried. Cammie? Nothing. She glances at the foyer and then nothing. She doesn’t seem worried at all. She just sounds bored. There’s no urgency in Cammie’s recollection.
Liz asks what if Bex got kicked out and apparently ups the worry in her voice as she says what if Bex got kicked out.
“Why would you think that?”
That’s all Cammie says. There’s no dialogue tag or description with Cammie being angry that Liz suggested a silly thing. Nothing. It’s not written like: “Why would you think that?” It’s just:
“Why would you think that?” Nothing. No emotion, no turning around to look at Liz.
Liz starts “well” and stumbles over the obvious. She continues saying that Bex is more “rules are optional” type of girl. She shrugs and Cammie can’t disagree with that.
If Bex is a rule breaker, I wouldn’t want her working for me if she can’t follow them. If she can’t follow rules, she might screw up on something. I get that Bex gets results, regardless, I don’t want her. It’s like telling a baker not to over make something and they do it anyway, wasting money and ingredients, even if it turned out that they needed extra. Okay, if once, fine, but continuously, like how it’s implied with Bex...no. I don’t want her working for me, regardless if she’s this “Gallagher Girl.”
Liz continues with her worries by asking why Bex is late, that Gallagher Girls are never late. She asks if Cammie knows something and then asks again if Cammie knows something.
Cammie tells us that it’s not fun being the headmistress’s daughter because it’s annoying when people think that she’s in a loop that she’s not and that people assume that she’s in partnership with the staff, when she’s not. We’re told that Cammie has private dinners with her mother on Sundays and that sometimes her mother leaves her alone in her office for five seconds, but that’s all. When school is in session, she’s a regular student except for those two reasons.
She looks at the front doors again and says that Bex is running late. She then prays that she hopes that there’s a pop quiz over dinner because nothing distracts Liz faster than a pop quiz.
Liz is a nerd, just in case you didn’t get it.
They approach the massive Grand Hall, where Gilly Gallagher supposedly poisoned a man at her own cotillion, and Cammie involuntary glances up at the electronic screen that read “English—American”. Cammie knows that everyone talks in their native language and accents for the welcome-back dinner. We’re told that Cammie hopes their mealtime conversations wouldn’t be taking place in “Chinese—Mandarin” for a week.
I would like to know how that “talk in a foreign language” over dinner thing works. There’s no teachers there making sure that these girls talk in the foreign language, so what’s stopping them from not using, let’s say, Greek? No one is getting graded on that. What happens if they don’t use a language and just talk in English throughout the entire thing? What happens if a person accidentally has a conversation in Greek during “French - Paris” lunch or something?
No Logic: 5
Liz and Cammie settle in at their usual table in the Grand Hall. Cammie finally feels at home. She tell us that she had been back for three weeks, but she had the newbies and staff for the company. She tells us that the only thing worse than being the only upperclassman in a mansion full of seventh grades, is hanging out in the teacher’s lounge, watching a Ancient Languages professor put drops in the ears of the world’s foremost authority on data encryption while the encryption guy swears to never go scuba diving again.
(Ew, mental picture of Mr. Mosckowitz in a wet suit! Gross!)
I don’t…
*headdesk*
*sighs*
I’m glad this “report” is practice. I don’t see the government caring about these pointless asides that “Cammie” is throwing in.
I kind of hate these pointless “asides” that’s in parenthesis. It can be done well and some of it can be funny. But these asides seem like it’s trying to be funny when it’s not at times. It kind of takes away from the story and is distracting.
She continues by telling us that a girl can read only so many back issues of Espionage Today. She spent those pre-semester days wandering around the mansion discovering hidden compartments and secret passages that are at least a hundred years old and haven’t seen a good dusting in that long.
Those spiderwebs and dust must be fucking thick. That dust would probably put my allergies through hell and back.
She lived in this mansion for three years, but she never bothered exploring it ‘til then?
Cammie tells us that she mostly tried to spend her time with her mother, but the woman was really busy and distracted. Cammie remembers that and she thinks of Bex’s sudden and mysterious absence. She now worries and wonders if Liz was onto something.
A girl named Anna Fetterman squeezes onto the bench next to Liz and asks them if they have seen it and if they looked. I want you to remember this girl, since she appears again later on in the book.
Anna is holding a blue slip of paper that instantly dissolves when you put it in your mouth. In an aside, Cammie tells us that it looks like it will taste like cotton candy, but it really doesn’t. Cammie tells us that she doesn’t know why they put the class schedule on Evapopaper and she assumes that it’s so they can use up the stash of bad-tasting paper so they can get onto the mythical good kind, that tastes like mint chocolate chip.
I figure it’s so that the schedules don’t end up in the dump where someone can find it and wonder what the hell is going on. They can shred it but still. But that’s me.
Anna wasn’t thinking about the Evapopaper flavor when she yells that they have Covert Operations, in a terrified voice. Cammie remembers that Anna is the only Gallagher Girl that Liz can take on in a fist-fight. Cammie looks at Liz, who rolls her eyes at Anna’s hysterics.
Sophomore year is the first time that the Gallagher Girls get to do anything that approaches actual fieldwork. It’s their first exposure to real spy stuff, but Anna seems to forget that “sadly” the class itself was kind of a cakewalk.
Like the teachers are going to send these girls out to do actual spy stuff and kill people. That would be actually awesome, but this book series is not.
Liz tells Anna that she’s sure that they can handle it. She pries the paper from Anna’s “frail hands” and says that all Buckingham does is tell horror stories about all the stuff she saw in World War Two and shows slides. Apparently ever since Buckingham broke her hip, she’s - Liz is suddenly cut off with Anna yelling that Buckingham is out and that catches Cammie’s attention.
Cammie looks at Anna for a second or two and tells Anna that Professor Buckingham is still here and she doesn’t bring up that she spent half the morning coaxing Buckingham’s cat, “Onyx” down from the top shelf of the library. She then proceeds to say that’s probably a start of the school rumor.
She then tells us that there’s plenty of those, like how some girl got kidnapped by terrorists or one of the staff members winning a hundred grand on Wheel of Fortune. In an aside we’re told that when Cammie thinks of it, that the hundred grand one was true.
Anna says that Cammie doesn’t understand. Buckingham is doing a semi-retirement thing where she’s going to do orientation and acclimation for the newbies and that’s it. She’s not going to teach anymore.
Wordlessly, their heads turn and they count seats at the staff table. There was an extra chair and Cammie asks who’s teaching “CoveOps.”
A loud murmur ripples through the Grand Hall as Cammie’s mother walks in with twenty teachers that Cammie helpfully informs us that she looked at and learned from for three years.
Twenty teachers. Twenty-one chairs. I know I’m the genius, but you do the math.
Suetiful All Along: 5
Was throwing that last line in fucking necessary? I’m not an idiot. We’re fucking told that Gallagher Academy is for geniuses on page one. We don’t need to be told that you’re a genius, we know it. We know that Liz must be a genius. We know that you’re all mothefucking geniuses. We don’t need to be told to do the math when you point out that there’s one person missing from the line of twenty teachers when there’s one extra chair for fuck’s sake.
We’re told that there was a new face in the crowd, but everyone was expecting Professor Smith to have a new face. We’re told that the man’s nose was larger, his ears more prominent and a small mole has been added to his left temple. He claims that he’s hiding the most wanted face in three continents.
We’re told that Professor Smith always returns with a new face every summer because a rumor says that he’s wanted by gun smugglers in the Middle East, ex-KGB hitmen in Eastern Europe, and a very upset ex-wife in Brazil.
Apparently all of the experience makes him a great Countries of the World (COW) professor, but the best thing that Professor Smith brings to the academy is the annual anticipation of guessing what face he will get in order to enjoy his summer break. We’re told that he hasn’t come back as a woman yet and that it’s probably just a matter of time. He never comes back as a woman in later books, I’m just saying.
And that seems oddly transphobic when I think about it.
The twenty teachers take their seats but the chair stays empty. Emphasis hers. Headmistress Morgan takes the podium which is in the middle of the long head table and this fuckery pops up:
“Women of the Gallagher Academy, who comes here?” she asked.
Just then every girl at every table (even the newbies) stood and said in unison, “We are the sisters of Gillian.”
“Why do you come?” my mother asked.
“To learn her skills. Honor her sword. And keep her secrets.”
“To what end do you work?”
“To the cause of justice and light.”
“How long will you strive?”
“For all the day of our lives.”
They can’t say that they’re there to honor Gillian’s legacy and protect her secrets. Like:
“Why do you come?”
“To honor Gillian’s legacy and protect her secrets.”
That motto is just clunky.
Cammie mentions that she felt a little like a character on one of her grandmother’s soap operas.
They sit down, but H.M remains standing. She welcomes back the students, and is beaming. She says that this will be a wonderful year at Gallagher Academy. For their newest members, she looks at the seventh graders, who shiver under H.M’s intense gaze, she welcomes them, and says that they are about to begin their most challenging year of their young lives. Rest assured they would not have been this challenge if they weren’t up to it. H.M looks at the upperclassmen and says that this year would mark many changes.
H.M looks at her colleagues, thinks about something and turns back to face them. She says that they came to a time but H.M is interrupted by the doors opening and Cammie helpfully informs us that three years of training at spy school didn't prepare her for what she saw.
We’re Spies: 1
Suetiful All Along: 6
We get it. You’re spies. Shut the fuck of up. I don’t know why the hell you have to say your training didn’t prepare you for this. Isn’t “Expect the unexpected” a saying for a good reason?
Cammie says that before she says more, she says she has to remind us that she goes to a girl’s school, as in all girls all the time.
No, boys aren’t opening the doors. Gallagher Academy is all-girls. It’s kind of unhelpful if these girls don’t have experience fighting guys, to be honest. These girls fight each other, there’s training dummies, but there’s no experience fighting a man that’s 6’6 who might have 30 years of training if these girls have 6 years of fighting girls that’s around the same height and weight as each other. Yes, I know there’s self-defense classes for women, but these girls are going to kill men.
I know there’s Natasha/Black Widow from the MCU, but that’s a different case since she was trained from birth, not 12 years old. And she was trained from The Winter Soldier.
No Logic: 5
We’re told that there’s two exceptions with Professor Smith and Professor Mosckowitz.
But when we turned around, we saw a man walking in our midst who would have made James Bond feel insecure. Indiana Jones would have looked like a momma’s boy compared to the man in the leather jacket with two days’ growth of beard who walked to where my mother stood and then—horror of horrors—winked at her.
Ugh.
*headdesk*
I don’t appreciate bringing in fictional characters like James Bond and Indiana Jones. I don’t know the two characters, but I’m sure everyone’s taste in men is different. I’m aro/ace so I can’t fucking talk about hotness. It’s all different for people. I think this man is a wannabe bad-ass, who needs to shave. But to others, I’m sure that it’s good-looking. Also, we get nothing about him. Is he blond, a redhead, Asian, Hispanic, Chinese...black?
It’s my headcanon that this man is now black. This man, Joe Solomon, apologizes for being late. His name isn’t mentioned at all, but I’m saying it now.
Cammie tells us that Joe’s appearance is unprecedented and so surreal, that she didn’t notice Bex squeezing in between Liz and Anna on the bench. Cammie had to do a double-take when she saw Bex, and remembered five seconds ago, Bex was MIA.
If you forgot that Liz and Cammie were worrying over Bex, and if you forgot about Bex’s existence, I don’t blame you. Those two forgot about Bex as well. Such good friends.
Bex asks if there’s “trouble, ladies?”
Liz demands to know where Bex has been. Anna cuts it, says forget that, and asks who he is. He being Joe Solomon.
Cammie helpfully informs that Bex is a natural-born spy, Bex raises her eyebrows and says that they’ll see.
And that ends Chapter 1 or as the chapters in this book are titled, “Chapter one.”
Seems intriguing right? So, it’s going to go down when later books start to get fucking unrealistic. Which I will get into, when I get there.
Also, this book has been optioned to be made into a movie by Disney, but then it ended up being optioned by Tonik Productions, so I’m not sure if this book will ever be made into a movie.
Counts:
Suetiful All Along: 6
Laugh, Damn It!: 1
We’re Spies: 1
No Logic: 5
There's a shoehorned romance with our protagonist and some bland, boring guy who can’t know the “truth” behind Gallagher Academy and the real story behind Cammie. So shoehorned romance and a large secret behind Cammie. At least it’s not a paranormal romance and the guy isn’t an abusive douche bag, fuckwit.
This hexalogy was written in 2006 to 2013. Each book takes place during a semester, starting with Cammie’s sophomore year, ending with her graduation.
Moving on...let’s look at the cover.
It’s not too bad to be honest. Not eye catching, except for the plaid edge and the emblem on the vest is eye-catching, especially when it was on the back. The lettering on Love and Kill is in ransom lettering, despite no ransom occurring. Interesting fact, there’s different colored plaid edges and skirts for the books because Ally Carter didn’t want her readers to get confused on if they read the sequel or not if it was all the same colors.
Okay, let’s get on with the dedication:
In memory of
Ellen Moore Balarzs,
a true Gallagher Girl.
I’m not entirely sure who Ellen Moore Balarzs is, or what made her a “true Gallagher Girl”, but I feel weird about the fact that Ally Carter marked this woman as a “Gallagher Girl” from “Gallagher Academy,” which is a school for spies. I think Ellen Moore Balarzs was in the Women’s Corps or the army, but I can’t be sure and now I feel like a douche bag for criticizing it, but a made-up school? Really?
Okay moving on. We start the chapter with this line:
I suppose a lot of teenage girls feel invisible sometimes, like they just disappear. Well, that’s me—Cammie the Chameleon. But I’m luckier than most because, at my school, that’s considered cool.
I go to a school for spies.
Suetiful All Along: 1
That’s the count when Cammie crams the fact that she’s this super special snowflake spy down our throats and that she’s not like other normal girls because, you know, she’s a spy in training. It gets a little worse in later books.
Cammie tells us that the cover-story for Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is that it’s actually a school for geniuses — not spies. Emphasis is hers. We’re told the school allows its students to pursue any career that benefits from their exceptional education. We’re also told that when a school tells you that, then teaches you encryption and fourteen different languages, the Gallagher Girls know lip service when they see it, sort of like big tobacco telling young kids not to smoke. I truly have no clue what that even means.
We’re told that Cammie’s mother rolls her eyes when Cammie calls it a spy school, doesn’t correct Cammie, that her mom is the headmistress of Gallagher Academy, and Headmistress Morgan is a former CIA agent.
Cammie tells us that it was her mother’s idea for her to write “this”, her first Covert Operations Report, to summarize what happened during last semester.
Apparently, Headmistress Morgan tells “us”, I’m guessing the students that the hardest part of being a spy is the paperwork.
After all, when you’re on a plane home from Istanbul with a nuclear warhead in a hatbox, the last thing you want to do is write a report about it. So that’s why I’m writing this — for the practice.
Wow, Cammie’s practice “Covert Operations Reports” is more along the lines of a “book” than a “report”. Also, her “report” is kind of rambly too.
I know, it’s just a book and that it’s “practice” and all, but still.
We’re told this:
If you’ve got a Level Four clearance or higher, you probably know all about us Gallagher Girls, since we’ve been around for more than a hundred years (the school, not me—I’ll turn sixteen next month!).
Wow, “Cammie” thanks for exposing your school and all.
I’m being sarcastic by the way.
We’re told that if we don’t have a “Level Four clearance” we believe that the Gallagher Academy is an urban spy myth like jet packs and invisible suits. If we drive by the ivy covered walls, look at the gorgeous mansion, the manicured grounds, we just believe that the “snooty boarding school” is for bored rich heiresses with no other place to go.
*facepalm*
*looks at that again*
*facepalm even harder*
Okay, so Cammie is telling me that I would instantly believe that this is a place for “rich bored heiresses with no place to go”, instead of a private school for rich girl geniuses like you told me?
Why would I think that anyway? Does this school have some technology to rewire my line of thinking every time that I look at it?
Also, I have to have a Level Four Clearance before I’m let in on the fact that this school exists? So, if I’m on Level Three and happened to drive by this school, I would think that this place is for rich bored heiresses, and then I’m let in on Level Four, I’m told the true story behind this school? I don’t get it.
What happens if you talk to a recent graduate of Gallagher Academy and you ask her where she graduated from, as a line of conversation? So, they tell you that they came from Gallagher Academy and then you learn that it’s a spy school once you hit Level Four.
That’s just weird. Wouldn’t it be better to be Level One so you don’t get your ass handed to you by a Gallagher Girl who you made fun of because she came from a “snooty school” and that she's a rich girl who probably never worked a day in her life? Total embarrassment, even if there’s a woman who worked her ass off to become a spy, instead of getting the position handed to her because of Gallagher Academy.
Also are all the female spies in that world Gallagher Girls or what? What do those women think of Gallagher Girls? Do they resent them? Is there an all-female rival school out there, especially in other parts of the world like in Harry Potter? Is Gallagher Academy the only spy-school?
And I have all these questions on the second page. I read this series from beginning to conclusion. I reread this book a few times and none of those questions were answered, so world-building potential was wasted. I’m not saying that Ally Carter should go into Rick Riordan levels of world-building, but she should give it a stand-alone spin off for these unanswered questions.
I’m purposely excluding Cross My Heart and Hope To Spy, by the way, because I’m not diving into that mess yet, until I get to it, for those who have read the series when it came out.
Okay, moving on. We’re told that the Gallagher Girls don’t mind the cover-up story, which is why the citizens of Roseville, Virginia don’t think twice about the long line of limousines that entered Gallagher Academy last September.
Cammie is on a window seat on the third floor of the mansion watching as cars materialize from “blankets of green foliage” and turn into the wrought-iron gates.
The driveway is half a mile long and curves through hills, looking harmless as the yellow brick road from Wizard of Oz. Also the road is equipped with laser beams that read tire treads, sensors that check for explosives, and there’s an entire section that can open up and swallow a truck whole. In parenthesis, Cammie states that if you think that’s dangerous, don’t get her started about the pond.
Cammie wraps her arms around her knees and looks out the wavy window. The red velvet curtains were drawn around the tiny alcove and she gets a weird sense of peace. She knows that in twenty minutes, the halls would be filled with girls, music is going to be blaring, and Cammie is going to go from an only child to one of a hundred, so she’s going to savor the silence while it lasts.
Apparently, to prove her point, a loud blast and the smell of burning hair comes up the main stairs from the second floor Hall of History. It’s followed by Professor Buckingham’s “distinguished” voice of the woman yelling at some girls that she told them not to touch... something.
The smell got worse, and one of the seventh graders was probably still on fire, because Professor Buckingham yelled, “Stand still. Stand still, I say!”
Did I mention that this book is supposed to be a romantic-comedy? So, you’re supposed to be laughing.
Laugh, Damn It!: 1
A count for when something that seems serious is played for laughs. So that scene with the professor telling the girl on fire to stand still is supposed to be funny. I admit I laughed at it, but now I realize how fucking serious and worrying that really is. Holy shit, I hope that girl is okay.
Professor Buckingham says some cuss words in French and Cammie says that the seventh graders wouldn’t know what those words are until three semesters in. She remembers how every year during the new student orientation, one of the newbies gets cocky and tries to show off by grabbing the sword that Gillian Gallagher used to kill the guy that tried to Abraham Lincoln. Apparently it was the first guy that we never heard about.
But what the newbies aren’t told on their campus tour is that Gilly’s sword is charged with enough electricity to...well..light your hair on fire.
I just love the start of school.
Laugh, Damn It!: 2
They told you that this girl is on fire only to turn around to tell you that it catches hair on fire. Also, this school doesn’t tell them that this sword is loaded with electricity to catch your hair on fire? I could understand not saying that and girls getting a little cocky, but I would be pissed if my hair caught on fire. And this happens frequently to the point where Cammie knows that it happens every year to the point that she loves it. This happens once every year, so shouldn’t these people tell the newbies that this sword catches your hair on fire?
No Logic: 2
One for the Level Four Clearance and one for not telling the newbies that the sword will catch your hair on fire during tours, even though it happens every year, so they should tell them about it. But I guess it teaches these girls not to grab the sword?
We get a time skip with Cammie saying that she thinks “our” room used to be an attic at one point. It has cool dormers, oddly shaped windows, and little nooks and crannies where people can sit with their back to the wall to listen to thundering feet, and squeals of hellos.
Apparently, Cammie is sure that thundering feet and squeals of hellos are standard for boarding schools everywhere, except for the ones in Portugal and Farsi.
Out in the hall, Kim Lee was walking about her summer in Singapore while Tina Walters was busy declaring that Cairo is super cool and that Johannesburg wasn’t. Cammie tells us that her mother said the same thing when Cammie complained about how Tina’s parents were taking her to Africa over the summer, while Cammie stays with her dad’s parents on a ranch in Nebraska. She tells us that the experience wouldn’t help her break out of an enemy interrogation facility or disarm a dirty bomb.
Tina asks someone where Cammie is, but she doesn’t want to come out of her room until she comes up with a story that matches the international exploits of her classmates. 70% of her classmates are daughters of current or former government operatives - aka spies.
So, the government in this has no FBI agents, or NASA, or IRS people? Is it all just spies?
No Logic: 3
We’re told that some girl named Courtney Bauer spent a week in Paris, whose parents are both optometrists, so Cammie’s not eager to say that she spent three months right in the middle of North America, cleaning fish.
So, I’m guessing that Cammie never went to town in Nebraska, then? I’m sure that even ranch owners have to go to town for something. I’m sure that she waited at a train or bus station there to get to the ranch. She hadn’t stopped someone getting mugged? Anything? Come up with a story on meeting up with a guy? Talk about what Nebraska is like, Cammie. I’m sure those girls never went to Nebraska in their lives. I’m sure some girls would be interested in hearing what Nebraska is like, no matter how boring.
Holy shit, this girl must be boring then. No wonder we never get any details on her summer vacation.
Cammie decides to tell the girls about the time she was experimenting with average household items that can be used as weapons and accidentally decapitated a scarecrow. We get parenthesis with Cammie asking who knew that knitting needles can do that kind of damage.
Cammie, it was a scarecrow. Not a regular person who has meat, veins, and bone to cut through just to be decapitated. I’m sure I can decapitate a scarecrow with knitting needles, if I get it just right.
No Logic: 4
Cammie hears a distinct thud of luggage crashing into a wall and a soft, Southern voice saying, “Oh, Cammie...come out, come out, wherever you are.”
Cammie peers around the corner and sees her roommate Liz posing in a doorway, trying to look like Miss Alabama, but Liz bears a greater resemblance to a toothpick in capri pants and flip-flops. But Cammie tells us that Liz looks like a very red toothpick.
Ouch, that sunburn must hurt like hell.
Liz asks Cammie if she missed her. Cammie tells us that she did miss Liz, but she was afraid of hugging Liz, so Cammie asks what happened to Liz. Liz rolls her eyes and says that Cammie should never fall asleep by a pool in Alabama as if she knows better. Cammie says that Liz should, because they’re all geniuses and all.
Suetiful All Along: 2
I know it’s for Cammie, but I decided that I count every instance of how the Gallagher Girls are better than you because they’re spies, geniuses or whatever else Cammie will brag about at the time.
I will introduce We’re Spies as well, because the author likes to think that we’re idiots and forget that they go to a school for spies or every time the word spy or anything spy related will pop up pass the first chapter. I’m giving Chapter 1 a pass because it needs to be set up.
We’re told that age nine, Liz, had the highest score on the third-grade achievement tests ever.
Suetiful All Along: 3
We’re also told that the government keeps track of that kind of thing, so the summer before seventh grade, Liz’s parents got a visit from some big guys in dark suits and three months later, Liz was a Gallagher Girl, not the kill-a-man-with-her-bare-hands kind.
I want you to keep the “kill a man with her bare hands” thing in mind. It’s a bit of a plot point for book 4, by the way.
Cammie goes on saying that if she was ever on a mission, she would want her other roommate, Bex, with her, and Liz far, far away with a dozen computers and a chessboard.
So, these Gallagher Girls get to pick their own teammates? Do other spies pick their teammates as well, or are these Gallagher Girls special cases? What happens when Cammie needs to go on a mission and Liz and Bex are on their own missions at the time?
No Logic: 4
Cammie remembers that “fact” as Liz tried to throw her suitcase on her bed, but misses as she knocked down a bookcase, “demolishes” Cammie’s stereo, and flattens Cammie’s perfectly-scaled replica of a DNA that Cammie made out of papier-mâché in the eighth grade.
Liz is a clutz. Not the “Bella” or “Ana” clumsy version of cute, clumsy girl that’s used once or twice. In this case, it’s more played for laughs than anything. I have no clue how much sentimental value Cammie has over that DNA replica, but I’m guessing some since she has it in the dorm room.
Liz says “oopsy daisy” and covers her hand with her mouth. Cammie tells us that Liz knows how to cuss in fourteen different languages, but when faced with a “minor catastrophe” she says “oopsy daisy”.
Cammie doesn’t care how badly sunburnt Liz is, she just has to hug her.
We time skip to 6:30 in the evening with the girls dressed in their uniforms, they go down the stairs that spiral down into the foyer, gracefully. We’re told that their “hands slide down the smooth mahogany” banister.
Everyone was laughing (turns out my knitting needle story was a big hit), but Liz and I kept looking toward the door in the center of the atrium below.
Suetiful All Along: 4
Cammie is our protagonist, so of course her story would be a big hit with these girls, for some reason. Why would you think differently?
Liz whispers that maybe there was a problem with the plane or customs, and then she says that this “person” is just running late.
Cammie nods and continues glancing down at the foyer as if, on cue, Bex was going to burst through the doors, but the doors stay closed and Liz’s voice gets squeaky as she asks Cammie if she heard from Bex. Liz says that she hadn’t heard from her and then asks why they didn’t hear from Bex.
Cammie says that she would be surprised if they had heard from Bex and that as soon as Bex said that her parents were taking a leave of absence to spend the summer with her and Cammie knew that Bex wasn’t going to be much of a pen pal.
Leave it to Liz to come to a completely different conclusion.
Hey, come on. I’m a paranoid person at times who jumps to worst case scenarios at times. Going under an overpass? I worry that the thing is going to come down on us. Wait for a train to pass? That thing is going to come off the rails and smash into us. Driving after stopping at a red light, a car is going to T-Bone me, like what happened to my dad, when I was younger. (He’s alive by the way.)
Also, I’m not sure if I should really be worried for Bex or not. I haven’t gotten to know her character at all. In fact she was mentioned one time in the previous pages and that’s all. Cammie is just droning on in a monotone. There’s no sense of worrying from Cammie. There’s no heart racing, stomach churning, nothing from her. Liz’s voice is going squeaky, so we know she’s worried. Cammie? Nothing. She glances at the foyer and then nothing. She doesn’t seem worried at all. She just sounds bored. There’s no urgency in Cammie’s recollection.
Liz asks what if Bex got kicked out and apparently ups the worry in her voice as she says what if Bex got kicked out.
“Why would you think that?”
That’s all Cammie says. There’s no dialogue tag or description with Cammie being angry that Liz suggested a silly thing. Nothing. It’s not written like: “Why would you think that?” It’s just:
“Why would you think that?” Nothing. No emotion, no turning around to look at Liz.
Liz starts “well” and stumbles over the obvious. She continues saying that Bex is more “rules are optional” type of girl. She shrugs and Cammie can’t disagree with that.
If Bex is a rule breaker, I wouldn’t want her working for me if she can’t follow them. If she can’t follow rules, she might screw up on something. I get that Bex gets results, regardless, I don’t want her. It’s like telling a baker not to over make something and they do it anyway, wasting money and ingredients, even if it turned out that they needed extra. Okay, if once, fine, but continuously, like how it’s implied with Bex...no. I don’t want her working for me, regardless if she’s this “Gallagher Girl.”
Liz continues with her worries by asking why Bex is late, that Gallagher Girls are never late. She asks if Cammie knows something and then asks again if Cammie knows something.
Cammie tells us that it’s not fun being the headmistress’s daughter because it’s annoying when people think that she’s in a loop that she’s not and that people assume that she’s in partnership with the staff, when she’s not. We’re told that Cammie has private dinners with her mother on Sundays and that sometimes her mother leaves her alone in her office for five seconds, but that’s all. When school is in session, she’s a regular student except for those two reasons.
She looks at the front doors again and says that Bex is running late. She then prays that she hopes that there’s a pop quiz over dinner because nothing distracts Liz faster than a pop quiz.
Liz is a nerd, just in case you didn’t get it.
They approach the massive Grand Hall, where Gilly Gallagher supposedly poisoned a man at her own cotillion, and Cammie involuntary glances up at the electronic screen that read “English—American”. Cammie knows that everyone talks in their native language and accents for the welcome-back dinner. We’re told that Cammie hopes their mealtime conversations wouldn’t be taking place in “Chinese—Mandarin” for a week.
I would like to know how that “talk in a foreign language” over dinner thing works. There’s no teachers there making sure that these girls talk in the foreign language, so what’s stopping them from not using, let’s say, Greek? No one is getting graded on that. What happens if they don’t use a language and just talk in English throughout the entire thing? What happens if a person accidentally has a conversation in Greek during “French - Paris” lunch or something?
No Logic: 5
Liz and Cammie settle in at their usual table in the Grand Hall. Cammie finally feels at home. She tell us that she had been back for three weeks, but she had the newbies and staff for the company. She tells us that the only thing worse than being the only upperclassman in a mansion full of seventh grades, is hanging out in the teacher’s lounge, watching a Ancient Languages professor put drops in the ears of the world’s foremost authority on data encryption while the encryption guy swears to never go scuba diving again.
(Ew, mental picture of Mr. Mosckowitz in a wet suit! Gross!)
I don’t…
*headdesk*
*sighs*
I’m glad this “report” is practice. I don’t see the government caring about these pointless asides that “Cammie” is throwing in.
I kind of hate these pointless “asides” that’s in parenthesis. It can be done well and some of it can be funny. But these asides seem like it’s trying to be funny when it’s not at times. It kind of takes away from the story and is distracting.
She continues by telling us that a girl can read only so many back issues of Espionage Today. She spent those pre-semester days wandering around the mansion discovering hidden compartments and secret passages that are at least a hundred years old and haven’t seen a good dusting in that long.
Those spiderwebs and dust must be fucking thick. That dust would probably put my allergies through hell and back.
She lived in this mansion for three years, but she never bothered exploring it ‘til then?
Cammie tells us that she mostly tried to spend her time with her mother, but the woman was really busy and distracted. Cammie remembers that and she thinks of Bex’s sudden and mysterious absence. She now worries and wonders if Liz was onto something.
A girl named Anna Fetterman squeezes onto the bench next to Liz and asks them if they have seen it and if they looked. I want you to remember this girl, since she appears again later on in the book.
Anna is holding a blue slip of paper that instantly dissolves when you put it in your mouth. In an aside, Cammie tells us that it looks like it will taste like cotton candy, but it really doesn’t. Cammie tells us that she doesn’t know why they put the class schedule on Evapopaper and she assumes that it’s so they can use up the stash of bad-tasting paper so they can get onto the mythical good kind, that tastes like mint chocolate chip.
I figure it’s so that the schedules don’t end up in the dump where someone can find it and wonder what the hell is going on. They can shred it but still. But that’s me.
Anna wasn’t thinking about the Evapopaper flavor when she yells that they have Covert Operations, in a terrified voice. Cammie remembers that Anna is the only Gallagher Girl that Liz can take on in a fist-fight. Cammie looks at Liz, who rolls her eyes at Anna’s hysterics.
Sophomore year is the first time that the Gallagher Girls get to do anything that approaches actual fieldwork. It’s their first exposure to real spy stuff, but Anna seems to forget that “sadly” the class itself was kind of a cakewalk.
Like the teachers are going to send these girls out to do actual spy stuff and kill people. That would be actually awesome, but this book series is not.
Liz tells Anna that she’s sure that they can handle it. She pries the paper from Anna’s “frail hands” and says that all Buckingham does is tell horror stories about all the stuff she saw in World War Two and shows slides. Apparently ever since Buckingham broke her hip, she’s - Liz is suddenly cut off with Anna yelling that Buckingham is out and that catches Cammie’s attention.
Cammie looks at Anna for a second or two and tells Anna that Professor Buckingham is still here and she doesn’t bring up that she spent half the morning coaxing Buckingham’s cat, “Onyx” down from the top shelf of the library. She then proceeds to say that’s probably a start of the school rumor.
She then tells us that there’s plenty of those, like how some girl got kidnapped by terrorists or one of the staff members winning a hundred grand on Wheel of Fortune. In an aside we’re told that when Cammie thinks of it, that the hundred grand one was true.
Anna says that Cammie doesn’t understand. Buckingham is doing a semi-retirement thing where she’s going to do orientation and acclimation for the newbies and that’s it. She’s not going to teach anymore.
Wordlessly, their heads turn and they count seats at the staff table. There was an extra chair and Cammie asks who’s teaching “CoveOps.”
A loud murmur ripples through the Grand Hall as Cammie’s mother walks in with twenty teachers that Cammie helpfully informs us that she looked at and learned from for three years.
Twenty teachers. Twenty-one chairs. I know I’m the genius, but you do the math.
Suetiful All Along: 5
Was throwing that last line in fucking necessary? I’m not an idiot. We’re fucking told that Gallagher Academy is for geniuses on page one. We don’t need to be told that you’re a genius, we know it. We know that Liz must be a genius. We know that you’re all mothefucking geniuses. We don’t need to be told to do the math when you point out that there’s one person missing from the line of twenty teachers when there’s one extra chair for fuck’s sake.
We’re told that there was a new face in the crowd, but everyone was expecting Professor Smith to have a new face. We’re told that the man’s nose was larger, his ears more prominent and a small mole has been added to his left temple. He claims that he’s hiding the most wanted face in three continents.
We’re told that Professor Smith always returns with a new face every summer because a rumor says that he’s wanted by gun smugglers in the Middle East, ex-KGB hitmen in Eastern Europe, and a very upset ex-wife in Brazil.
Apparently all of the experience makes him a great Countries of the World (COW) professor, but the best thing that Professor Smith brings to the academy is the annual anticipation of guessing what face he will get in order to enjoy his summer break. We’re told that he hasn’t come back as a woman yet and that it’s probably just a matter of time. He never comes back as a woman in later books, I’m just saying.
And that seems oddly transphobic when I think about it.
The twenty teachers take their seats but the chair stays empty. Emphasis hers. Headmistress Morgan takes the podium which is in the middle of the long head table and this fuckery pops up:
“Women of the Gallagher Academy, who comes here?” she asked.
Just then every girl at every table (even the newbies) stood and said in unison, “We are the sisters of Gillian.”
“Why do you come?” my mother asked.
“To learn her skills. Honor her sword. And keep her secrets.”
“To what end do you work?”
“To the cause of justice and light.”
“How long will you strive?”
“For all the day of our lives.”
They can’t say that they’re there to honor Gillian’s legacy and protect her secrets. Like:
“Why do you come?”
“To honor Gillian’s legacy and protect her secrets.”
That motto is just clunky.
Cammie mentions that she felt a little like a character on one of her grandmother’s soap operas.
They sit down, but H.M remains standing. She welcomes back the students, and is beaming. She says that this will be a wonderful year at Gallagher Academy. For their newest members, she looks at the seventh graders, who shiver under H.M’s intense gaze, she welcomes them, and says that they are about to begin their most challenging year of their young lives. Rest assured they would not have been this challenge if they weren’t up to it. H.M looks at the upperclassmen and says that this year would mark many changes.
H.M looks at her colleagues, thinks about something and turns back to face them. She says that they came to a time but H.M is interrupted by the doors opening and Cammie helpfully informs us that three years of training at spy school didn't prepare her for what she saw.
We’re Spies: 1
Suetiful All Along: 6
We get it. You’re spies. Shut the fuck of up. I don’t know why the hell you have to say your training didn’t prepare you for this. Isn’t “Expect the unexpected” a saying for a good reason?
Cammie says that before she says more, she says she has to remind us that she goes to a girl’s school, as in all girls all the time.
No, boys aren’t opening the doors. Gallagher Academy is all-girls. It’s kind of unhelpful if these girls don’t have experience fighting guys, to be honest. These girls fight each other, there’s training dummies, but there’s no experience fighting a man that’s 6’6 who might have 30 years of training if these girls have 6 years of fighting girls that’s around the same height and weight as each other. Yes, I know there’s self-defense classes for women, but these girls are going to kill men.
I know there’s Natasha/Black Widow from the MCU, but that’s a different case since she was trained from birth, not 12 years old. And she was trained from The Winter Soldier.
No Logic: 5
We’re told that there’s two exceptions with Professor Smith and Professor Mosckowitz.
But when we turned around, we saw a man walking in our midst who would have made James Bond feel insecure. Indiana Jones would have looked like a momma’s boy compared to the man in the leather jacket with two days’ growth of beard who walked to where my mother stood and then—horror of horrors—winked at her.
Ugh.
*headdesk*
I don’t appreciate bringing in fictional characters like James Bond and Indiana Jones. I don’t know the two characters, but I’m sure everyone’s taste in men is different. I’m aro/ace so I can’t fucking talk about hotness. It’s all different for people. I think this man is a wannabe bad-ass, who needs to shave. But to others, I’m sure that it’s good-looking. Also, we get nothing about him. Is he blond, a redhead, Asian, Hispanic, Chinese...black?
It’s my headcanon that this man is now black. This man, Joe Solomon, apologizes for being late. His name isn’t mentioned at all, but I’m saying it now.
Cammie tells us that Joe’s appearance is unprecedented and so surreal, that she didn’t notice Bex squeezing in between Liz and Anna on the bench. Cammie had to do a double-take when she saw Bex, and remembered five seconds ago, Bex was MIA.
If you forgot that Liz and Cammie were worrying over Bex, and if you forgot about Bex’s existence, I don’t blame you. Those two forgot about Bex as well. Such good friends.
Bex asks if there’s “trouble, ladies?”
Liz demands to know where Bex has been. Anna cuts it, says forget that, and asks who he is. He being Joe Solomon.
Cammie helpfully informs that Bex is a natural-born spy, Bex raises her eyebrows and says that they’ll see.
And that ends Chapter 1 or as the chapters in this book are titled, “Chapter one.”
Seems intriguing right? So, it’s going to go down when later books start to get fucking unrealistic. Which I will get into, when I get there.
Also, this book has been optioned to be made into a movie by Disney, but then it ended up being optioned by Tonik Productions, so I’m not sure if this book will ever be made into a movie.
Counts:
Suetiful All Along: 6
Laugh, Damn It!: 1
We’re Spies: 1
No Logic: 5
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}