3.5 stars. - This book seemed to fall flat somehow compared to the previous 9 books in the series. Murray Hill is one of my favourite characters because he is always so funny, and he just didn't seem as funny this time around. Alexander wasn't as clueless as usual, and Dane didn't make an appearance either, sadly. Joshua Hallal almost seemed like a background character, which was kind of odd. A good read, but probably my 2nd least favourite in the series so far. =\

Yesterday, I posted my review of Killers of a Certain Age, a story about 4 assassins who are in their 60s. Today, I am posting something similar, albeit on the other end of the age spectrum. Spy School Project X by Stuart Gibbs is the 10th book in the spy series. The main characters are now teens, plucked from their normal lives to train as junior CIA agents. I haven’t read any of the previous books, and although I’d love to follow their character developments, I didn’t encounter any issues reading this as standalone. The reader can easily follow along as the narrator will fill you in with past events from time to time. As you can guess from the title and synopsis, this book is action-packed and full of over-the-top adventures. It’s very entertaining and contains hilarious moments that will surely be appreciated by its intended audience. I’d definitely recommend this to my own kid when she reaches middle school age. Heck, I’d even recommend this to any bookworms who love spy stories!!!🔎💕

Thanks to @simonschusterca for my eGalley. I truly enjoyed reading about Ben and his Spy School friends! This book is now out in the world!💕

Spy School Project X is a action packed book about Ben and his friends being hunted down by assassins all over America and conspiracy theorists. The cause of this? Ben's nemesis Murray Hill. Murray Hill added a 21 million dollar bounty to Ben's head and on a website full of conspiracy theorist he gave them false information about Ben. Will Ben and his friends survive or will they be killed by the assassins? Read this book to find out.

Compared to the book before, this book was much more adventurous and had more action involved. I really enjoyed this book because this book was very adventurous and funny.

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the advance copy!

I have been a fan of the Spy School books since I read the first one in middle school, and I have been keeping up with them ever since, and I was very excited to read this next installment in the crazy adventures of Ben Ripley and his friends and enemies. This book is less focused on one person/organization with a set evil agenda and goal, but rather the collective stupidity of humans who will believe the dumbest stuff they are told. By this I mean conspiracy theorists.

To be honest, I personally didn't enjoy this book as much as I have others in the series. I think this is because of my general fatigue of hearing about dumb stuff online, and I tend to read to get away from that. However, it's definitely a great book for kids growing up in an age where the whole internet is at their fingertips (though it really shouldn't be), and critical thinking is a must-have. This book shoves in your face DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ ONLINE. I as an adult may have found the moral of the story obvious and a bit heavy handed, but for younger kids reading this, it gets the point across good enough.

And I did have fun with the adventures all the characters got up to! There are lots of assassins of many different backgrounds, all trying to kill Ben, and I do love me a good action scene and car chase with fun weapons, and you aren't going to miss out on any of those, despite a more internet-centric plot.

Overall, I give this four stars. Personally it falls closer to three, mainly because I didn't enjoy the plot as much as all the other Spy School books, but it has a lot of value in the message, and it didn't bore me enough to dislike it. And as always, I am hooked on what's to come next in the series with the communication full of redactions at the end.

This book is awesome. It addresses real-world issues in a fun and entertaining way. The characters and storyline is consistent and engaging, it leaves you sitting on the edge of your seat. 5/5 stars for sure!

Gibbs flips the game board

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for an advanced review copy of Spy School Project X.

Spy School novels have a formula. We have Ben Ripley, a gifted kid who achieves excellent results by not being stupid, Ben's friends who are well-intentioned and sometimes competent, and the ever-expanding dysfunctional Hale family made up of the World's worst spies, who believe themselves to be the World's best spies, including toothsome teen sisters Erica and Trixie Hale. Gibbs picks a setting (frequently this is the site of a vacation or a sight-seeing visit he made), then makes up a silly James Bond-esque plot to play out there, with jokes! The main questions one asks on picking up a new Spy School book are "Where will it happen?" and "How will character relationships change?" At the end of the previous novel (Spy School at Sea) Erica and Ben became boyfriend and girlfriend, so we were expecting to see that play out in book 10. (And of course I'm not going to tell you what happens with that.)

To me, however, the big question was what would happen to the formula. It seemed to be getting a bit tired. Book 8, Spy School Revolution felt decidedly "Meh..." to me. Spy School at Sea recaptured a little of the magic, but still was not as funny as the first book. Now, there was no pressing need to change the formula. Spy School has an army of devoted followers (I am one -- I have read every one of the books) and new releases regularly rack up 4.8-star average ratings on Amazon. Why not continue to give the readers what they so evidently want? Why not milk this cow?

Well, score one for artistic integrity! Apparently Gibbs realized he was getting into a rut and took action to boost himself out of it. He doesn't say exactly this, but in an Author's Note at the end he writes

"... in the first nine Spy School books, the evil plots of the bad guys have all been riffs on the sort of ridiculous, over-the-top evil schemes of James Bond villains ... But when the time came to think about book ten, I realized that there were actual, real-world issues that would make for good plots as well."

So in chapter one he blows everything up (literally). The Spy School novels will never be the same again. (At least I hope not, because this is SO much better.) Now, to allay the fears of avid Spy School fans, I hasten to add that Project X is still a Spy School novel. It still stars Ben and his friends and the Hale family, along with comically inept nemesis Murray Hill.

The result is a novel that is simultaneously much more serious and much funnier than previous Spy School novels. It is more serious because of those real-world issues he alludes to, which, to avoid spoilers, I will not identify. It is funnier because the jokes are more frequent and better. I don't know why that is, but I speculate that Gibbs was enthusiastic about this new direction, and inspired to be funnier.

Warning: when this is released, I predict that we will see politically motivated negative reviews on Amazon. ;-[