sharkinaberet 's review for:

The Recruit by Robert Muchamore

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Listen. It's the Christmas holidays, I'm ill and isolating in my childhood bedroom. I brought several books back for this visit, all of which are lengthy and fairly cerebral. I'm not in the mood for lengthy and cerebral. I recently reread A Series of Unfortunate Events and the Bartimaeus Trilogy, the only YA series I habitually revisit. I'm in desperate need of something fun and comforting. While lying on my bed staring at the huge stacks of books in this room (I ran out of bookshelf space many, many, many years ago and resorted to stacking books to shoulder height along the length of an entire wall) my gaze landed on all 12 original Cherub books neatly piled in chronological order and knew it was once again time.

I actually couldn't begin to quantify the number of times I read this book as a child, but I reckon I've clocked in at least 20 rereads. I got obsessed with the first few books in the series when I was 12 years old and read them constantly, always rereading the full series when a new instalment came out. However, I haven't reread them since 2017 - I was doing my undergraduate dissertation and in a similar mental position of needing something fun and comforting. And it delivers! It's fun, it's snappy, it feels quick and sharp and still legitimately engaging. I'm really genuinely excited to read several more tomorrow.