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allieeveryday 's review for:
American Spy
by Lauren Wilkinson
2.5 stars. I'm not sure if this was a problem with my own expectations, or that the book was mis-marketed.
The cover blurb on my paperback describes this as an "espionage thriller" - and when I think "thriller," I think of fast pacing, twists and turns. It starts out strong, the way I expected a thriller to be, but the pacing dipped back down and kind of barely hovered above the ground for most of the book. And that's the problem for me: if this had been marketed as a character study of Marie's journey into becoming a spy, or even a family "saga" (I say that with a tinge of irony, because the book is less than 300 pages) since so much has to do with Marie's mother and sister - whom we are led to believe are also both Feds - and Marie's children, I might have appreciated it more. But instead, I kept waiting for something major to happen. Even the climax felt anti-climactic.
It's complicated too. There's a lot that's unsaid, both in Marie's conversations and in what is presented to the reader. I believed Marie when she said she was good at her job, that external facts (racism, sexism) kept her in the field office instead of out being a spy, until I read Gabriella's review while I was finishing up. Her review makes some really good points about Marie's competence, and made me question what I thought of Marie. And I suppose that's great, that Marie is allowed to be a complicated mess, but I didn't buy a lot of the work she was doing, particularly in the second half off the book.
It'll make a good conversation for book club tonight. :)
The cover blurb on my paperback describes this as an "espionage thriller" - and when I think "thriller," I think of fast pacing, twists and turns. It starts out strong, the way I expected a thriller to be, but the pacing dipped back down and kind of barely hovered above the ground for most of the book. And that's the problem for me: if this had been marketed as a character study of Marie's journey into becoming a spy, or even a family "saga" (I say that with a tinge of irony, because the book is less than 300 pages) since so much has to do with Marie's mother and sister - whom we are led to believe are also both Feds - and Marie's children, I might have appreciated it more. But instead, I kept waiting for something major to happen. Even the climax felt anti-climactic.
It's complicated too. There's a lot that's unsaid, both in Marie's conversations and in what is presented to the reader. I believed Marie when she said she was good at her job, that external facts (racism, sexism) kept her in the field office instead of out being a spy, until I read Gabriella's review while I was finishing up. Her review makes some really good points about Marie's competence, and made me question what I thought of Marie. And I suppose that's great, that Marie is allowed to be a complicated mess, but I didn't buy a lot of the work she was doing, particularly in the second half off the book.
It'll make a good conversation for book club tonight. :)