xeni 's review for:

H.I.V.E.: Higher Institute of Villainous Education by Mark Walden

4.0

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This was a fun little story. It's between middle grade and YA; the protagonists are all 13-14 years old, but all are highly skilled at infiltration, technology, combat or a combination.

It's always fun to have a very canny Machiavellian protagonist and Otto is no exception. He's still a kid, however, and the book doesn't shy away from that. This book was well written, though clearly for a younger audience.

I enjoyed hanging out at the weird in-a-volcano-island school facility. It reminds me a bit of Harry Potter in how vast and uncomprehending all the many caverns and rooms are.

What I didn't like so much was the very authoritarian hierarchy the villains seem to be operating under. Every interaction with Number One was just so ugh. In counterpoint, since this was written right around the beginning of the smartphone era, it's super amusing to see kids get PDAs and tablets being treated like something super sacred.

Granted, the plot was fairly straight forward (though I did love

Spoiler

the introduction of an Audrey II type plant!

and the characters fairly predictable. I think that I just enjoyed this for the fun popcorn book it was.