It's rare for a book about a spy to be, well, boring. There just wasn't enough action in this for me to feel truly captivated. I was also a little put off by the style. The main character, Marie, is telling the story and it's written as if she's writing down everything for her sons to read one day. This is the second book I've read recently with this style, and it's definitely not my thing. I felt taken out of the story every time she brought up the fact that this was supposed to be a diary of sorts (which didn't read that way at all).

I might have given this book three stars because the premise for the story (an American spy ends up investigating a real-life African political leader) was really fascinating. And I think Wilkinson must have done a lot of research for the settings and characters to feel realistic. However, the jump in time frames felt super confusing and there were soooo many loose ends that didn't get tied up that left me with tons of questions. The ending was completely open (almost as if there might be a follow-up book), but I was just left feeling frustrated and confused by the last page.

This book was so much more than I expected. Not only did it open my eyes to a lot of true history of our nation post WWII, it also felt like coming home when reading about the protagonists dual life. This story is one that should be on everyone’s list for the way it showcases our flawed history and the human heart. I absolutely loved it!

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

One of my favorite things about this clever book is the way the narration tells the story. It plays out in a really cool way that gives you propulsive and compelling action with a sharp voice and creative plot. A great read.

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley.

I loved this so much. The way that the author told this story (as a letter from mother to sons), was a risk but it paid off. Wilkinson turned the classic spy story on its head, and in doing so made the story about so much more than its plot. I have a feeling I'll be thinking about this one for a while.

Wowser, howser! This was a book I didn't know I needed to read and one that I'm eternally grateful I did read.

Sorry - I've tried this a couple of times and it just doesn't grab me. The subject matter is interesting but the voice is quite generic. DNF

American Spy is a character-driven debut novel where love, duty, and survival intersect. The storyline bounces around in time and setting with riveting twists and turns, told in a first-person, diary-like account. Protagonist Marie grapples with her mixed cultural heritage (her mom came from Martinique, dad was a NYC cop). Marie aspires to become a spy or at least an FBI agent in the 1980s, when the glass ceiling in such agencies was low, and virtually unbreakable. She’s haunted by memories of her deceased, beloved sister, Helene, who’d always dreamed to be a girl James Bond. Never knowing whom to trust, Marie relies on herself and her idealism to guide her through the murky international intelligence world. Eager to escape her desk job and experience real action, Marie is recruited by a mercenary offshoot of the CIA, and during assignment in Burkina Faso, falls in love with her charismatic target, Thomas. Complications arise, and according to author Lauren Wilkinson’s website, Thomas Sankara is a real person. I love the way this novel skirts fine lines between fiction and true history. One of my picks for Great Summer Reads 2019.

I read this book for book club this month and I enjoyed it but it wasn't my favorite selection. I love the representation and setting but i found the pacing didn't sit right. The good news is that this book provided great discussion at book club.

This book was interesting. It shows a lot of potential for this author going forward. I thought there were many positive points, such as the diversity of characters and the plot from their POV. However, the writing style for this book didn’t work for me. I just wasn’t a fan. It was not an easily readable style.
I would give the author another try based on the creativity in the premise of the story.

#AmericanSpy #NetGalley

Action packed in the first chapter and then shifted tone to a quiet story about an African American woman working in the FBI and falling in love. This book wasn’t really my tempo I was expecting a thriller, an ultimately fine book.

I appreciate that the author was trying to write a novel about spies a little bit differently by using the the narration with the protagonist to tell a story to her twin children. This is fine, but confusing when the story goes on for several pages and referring back to her children as "you" in the middle of a story about the past. I was confused several times when this happened, and had to constantly go back and re-read pages. The journal type storytelling just didn't work for me, it felt like there was too much telling or story and not enough showing through narration.

2.5

I will first say, yes, this is a fascinating story following the real-world details of the last year of Thomas Sankara's controversial presidency of Burkina Faso, as seen through the eyes of a young FBI agent, Marie, during a contract job overseas with the CIA. I think anyone with any interest in the world politics of the 1980s would be enthralled by the overall premise.

At the onset Marie is attacked in her home and flees the US to bring her young boys to Martinique where they can feel safe, staying with her mother. After they've settled, Marie addresses why she is writing (and writing at "you", who are her sons) as she retells how her life has been put in danger and details her family life before she joined the Bureau, the limitations she felt there as a black woman, and how she came to be involved in the operation to infiltrate Sankara's inner circle.

My personal preference, run by my writer-brain, did not allow me to fully envelop myself in Marie's back story or frightening adventures due to the odd choice of formatting which allowed the entirety to, frustratingly, be TOLD rather than shown to the reader. Each time I was really getting hooked by Marie's in-scene memories in NYC, for example, she would break the story by making it again apparent that the entirety is a journal and that none of the action (after the first couple chapters) is in the present. And then, the ending was left wide open which did work, though I would have so appreciated an epilogue for some minimal resolution.

Published by Random House on February 12, 2019

American Spy is a mixture of domestic drama and spy thriller. Much of its focus is on the difficult childhood and questionable parenting that shaped its protagonist, Marie Mitchell, and on Marie’s problematic relationship with her mother. Surrounding those domestic problems is a plot that follows Marie’s short career with the FBI and as a contractor working against the interests of a politician in Burkina Faso.

The novel begins in Connecticut in 1992. An attempt to kill Marie in her sleep doesn’t end well for the assassin. Two days later, using fake passports, she moves her two sons to Martinique, where her mother was born and is currently living.

After a day, Marie begins writing a journal so that her children, who believe their father died in a war, will one day understand the truth about her mother’s life. Most of the story consists of that journal. Do mothers who write extended explanations to their children include dialog and atmosphere? Maybe literature professors do, but not FBI agents who have been trained to stick to the facts and produce the dullest prose imaginable. I didn’t buy the journal concept, although most of the time it is easy to ignore the fact that the story is not told in a conventional narrative.

Marie’s story starts in New York, when in 1987 she is asked to leave the FBI so that she can work as a temporary contractor for the CIA. But Marie’s backstory dates to her childhood in Queens, where her father was a cop. Her interest in espionage may have been born when her 13-year-old sister confidently announced her intent to become a spy, showing no concern that her race might be a barrier to joining the intelligence community. Helene was always the braver, less timid sister, and it was Helene who encouraged Marie to follow in her footsteps. Some of the novel’s backstory follows Marie’s aborted relationship with Helene during their adulthood, as well as Helene’s romantic relationship with Daniel Slater. That relationship leads to revelations that become a turning point later in the story.

By 1987, the FBI had proven itself to be more lawless than the organizations upon which it spied, including its role in the murder of Fred Hampton while he slept. Marie has little love for her employer and is pleased to be asked to help gather intelligence about Burkina Faso while its president, Thomas Sankara, is in New York. The long-term goal is to influence the country’s elections with a political party America controls — the CIA’s version of “true democracy.” Marie has little interest in American expansionism, and even less in sleeping with Sankara in exchange for an obscene amount of money, but in the belief that she can outwit both her handler and Sankara, she accepts the assignment in order to pursue an agenda of her own.

The main plot follows Marie’s relationship with Sankara as she tries to sort through how she feels about his charismatic condemnation of imperialism and his flirtation with authoritarianism, how she feels about the CIA’s attempt to use her, and how she feels about the revelations mentioned above. The pace is deliberate but the story is so rich in detail that it never becomes dull. The plot holds a nice surprise although not the sort of surprise that has become conventional in spy novels.

The decision to emphasize domestic drama might put off some spy novel fans but it might also appeal to domestic drama fans who typically avoid spy novels. I wouldn’t herald Lauren Wilkinson as the second coming of John le Carré, as have some people who blurbed the book, but Wilkinson’s fresh take on spy novels has some appeal. I appreciated its focus on a country that is rarely in the news and on the way in which private companies meddle in foreign affairs with America's under-the-table blessing, not to promote democracy but to increase private wealth. Apart from the novel’s other merits, I also appreciated Wilkinson’s graceful prose.

RECOMMENDED

The story in this novel is compelling and has a lot of promise. HOWEVER .... the voice made this so clunky for me. Even in the one book I got through, it didn’t really help the telling. For this novel, I ultimately just didn’t finish it because of the awkward second person voice.

Lauren Wilkinson’s dazzling debut, American Spy, is being hailed as brave, stunning and unforgettable and I couldn’t agree more. The first signs of brilliance in this book start with the title itself. American’s have grown up to believe thrillers focused on espionage should be laced with high tech toys, sexy side stories and glitter that makes most of them as enticing as they are forgettable – but not Wilkinson. She’s turned everything about undercover operatives upside down and made me fall in love with the gritty humanity and heartbreaking sacrifices people make when they turn to this life, highlighting the fearlessness and loneliness that goes along with it.

What a great take on the spy thriller genre. This was twisty and unpredictable and lots of fun. I love reading authors of color in genre fiction, and Lauren Wilkinson has written a wonderful debut.

Marie is an FBI agent, and she has a complicated relationship with her job. She's talented but undervalued by her bosses, and as a young black woman, she faces daily discrimination. When she's sent undercover to Burkina Faso to gather intelligence on a revolutionary new president, she learns a lot more about the FBI's agenda and her own beliefs.

I adore this book! It's totally engaging, and the storytelling is perfection. It's got a little bit of everything - thrill, intrigue, family drama, romance - and keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. Marie is a complex, imperfect protagonist on a dangerous journey, and I rooted for her through every uncertain step. I can't wait to read more from Lauren Wilkinson in the future.

Very intelligent twist on the spy novel, bringing in a new POV, the treatment of people of color in the intelligence community as a woman tryies to communicate what it was like to be a spy in the last 20th century to her sons. Clever use of POV to let us further inside a secretive character's head, and all the best parts of literature and suspense wrapped up together.

Lauren had a lot to say about the process of writing the book as well as the idea that sometimes it's easier to tell the truth through writing fiction when she came on The Secret Library podcast. She was fantastic to talk to and her thoughts will bring even more insight about a great book.

Set in the throes of the Cold War, the spy Marie Mitchell is tasked with gathering information on Burkina Faso's communist yet charismatic leader Thomas Sankara. American Spy is largely an epistolary novel; Marie writes to her two children about her role as a spy in a communist African country. I found this form curious but limiting. This stylistic choice allows us to better understand Marie, but it spoils any mystery; one being her survival and I shan't spoil anything more, though one thing niggled at me and was so obvious in retrospect. Wilkinson's American Spy is a fun read and a welcome entry to a field that's white and male. Moreover, Wilkinson clearly did her research in inventing the main character. Marie Mitchell's background seems plausible; she's the daughter of an African-American and a mulatto white-passing Martiniquais mother, and this interesting background influences her thinking on race, politics, etc. Though the events of American Spy take place in the 80s, they sadly appear contemporary.

If you're a fan of thrillers, spy novels, and all things Cold War, I recommend American Spy with its novel take on a determined - black and female - spy.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Random House, and Lauren Wilkinson for allowing me to review this title before it had been released.