Two Lies and A Spy by Kat Carlton
September 3, 2013
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
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Kari plunges into the world of espionage on a mission to save her parents while trying to impress the guy she’s been in love with forever.
When sixteen-year-old Kari’s dad sends her an unexpected text, she and her brother immediately go into hiding. Because when your parents are superspies and your dad declares a Code Black, it can only mean something bad. Very bad.
Kari soon discovers that her parents have been disavowed and declared traitors, and she’s determined to clear their names. Breaking into the Agency seems like a reasonable plan, especially with the help of a team that includes her longtime crush, Luke, as well as her two best friends—an expert hacker with attitude and a master martial artist—and Luke’s popular, vindictive twin sister. Oh, and a new guy, who’s as cute as he is complicated…
First sentence: “Can u pick up milk on ur way home?”
I love spy books, so I thought I’d love Two Lies and a Spy, right? Well, yeah, no. I did not like the book. Not at all. :\ I thought I could suspend my disbelief (which is absolutely necessary to get through this book), but apparently I could not? This book is meant to be light and fun! Sure it is…to a point. For the majority of this book, I found myself cringing and half-tempted to crumble the book up like a paper ball. I wondered if I had gone jaded when it comes to light, fun books? (I think I have.)
Awesome and fun spy stuff. Badass female character, kicking everybody’s ass. Friends who have personality and don’t disappear from the scene when their job is done. Guys who make readers swoon. Self-aware and thoughtful characters that stop and acknowledge that something is really wrong with their scene. Awesome action scenes. Some cheesiness, but the awesomeness would outweigh it.
Two Lies and a Spy was anything but fun. All the characters irritated me because they were one-dimensional and they didn’t stand out to me. Kari Andrews, the main character, is smart, but blabbing to her friends that her parents are spies and the things she did to break her parents out of Langley prison were incredibly stupid. It might be cool and all to have spies for parents, but damn, if you blab in the fucking public about it, someone will hear (and someone did). I wish she had taken a few moments throughout the book to assess the situation.
All the other supporting characters were so uninteresting. So, we have Luke, the boy who Kari likes. He was sooo boring. There was nothing about him that was memorable. He was the “nice guy” to contrast Evan, the apparently “snarky” (but really gross) British guy. Then, there’s Lacey, Luke’s twin sister, who is a stereotypical popular girl who knows she’s hot and flaunts it in the face of every male. I was disheartened that was all her usefulness. Then there’s Rita, Kari’s technologically savvy best friend, who didn’t do anything that contributed to the mission except argue with Lacey and sneer at Kale, Kari’s other best friend. Kale is a guy who is extremely good at martial arts and is a bit lower on the social class than the others. He served as backup for Kari when they were beating guys up. However, they were too similar to each other, which
Okay, let me take a moment to rant about how horrible Evan is. He makes incredibly pervy, suggestive comments (which I guess is normal for teenage boys) that made me uncomfortable by the sheer cheesiness and sleaziness of it. He thinks his hot-stuff, and he whines a lot for being roped into this job when he had decided himself to join in. Just because the guy is British doesn’t make him charming. It just makes him gross. On top of that, Evan’s suppose to be British, but he didn’t seem like it. Sure, you can say he is, but the way he talks and his mannerisms did not show me that he was. I kept thinking he was American. If you want him to be British, then I guess you should’ve phrase the sentences differently or change the spelling of words so at least it’s visually British. /end rant.
Yeah, breaking into Langley is so easy, right? WRONG. I would think you would need various plans to infiltrate Langley and escaping efficiently. You would need a lot of backup plans, right? These kids did no such thing. They had one plan. Go in. Break Kari’s mom (or her dad) out and escape. They essentially walked in and played it by ear, which is the worst thing you could do, especially in a government building that has restricted areas. Oh Kari, did you really think your plan was going to work? Didn’t you see the signs? *insert deep sighs and head shaking*
This book should’ve just focused on the parents because they were far interesting. Here’s the thing: They’re accused of being double agents and [spoiler]usually, in books, they turn out not to be, but mannnn, these parents are really traitors and that was an amazing reveal[/spoiler]. I loved it. It brought up questions of their secret lives. Give me that!
I think I will avoid “light and fun” books from now on because obviously I will hate it and that makes me incredibly sad. If you’re like me and find yourself no longer enjoying these types of books, then you should stay away from this one. It’s not fun. Frustrating is more like it.
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