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ptstewart 's review for:
Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy
by Ally Carter
I can’t critically review this for a few reasons, and all of them are kinda dumb. I keep finding myself in this novel.
I read this novel (this whole series really) when I was twelve. When I was discovering all the potential people I could be at the time and deciding what that meant. So at the time, I sucked books down and, apparently, used them to build pieces of myself that would last. I sign my notes with my initial because of ~some hot book character~ from way back when. That’s Zach. I say things take “forever and a day” because Cammie’s elevator ride takes forever and a day. There are phrases and behaviors I have now that I stole from this book, things for which I’d long ago forgotten the origin. Lines came back to me as if I’d read them days ago; I must have read them hundreds of times as a kid, thinking they were so grand.
But on the other hand, he’d offered me candy once when I was hungry, and I couldn’t help thinking that maybe that made him sort of knightlike after all. That maybe it wasn’t his fault his armor was kind of tarnished.
I loved that line as a kid; I love it now. Cross My Heart and Hope To Spy isn’t spectacular or groundbreaking (though it is so much better than the first one), and it will never make literary history. Some jokes are corny, some logic is faulty, and you can’t help but notice that the girls have rather big holes in their education in terms of the real world. But re-reading this was a reminder of the importance of some YA fiction, especially that which depicts young, capable women: the fiction we read as kids helps shapes us and stays with us long after we forget it.
This was an absolute joy to rediscover.
Oh and FOLLOW UP: 100 million stars to Zachary Goode, the lone non-toxic 2000s era bad boy I have found. Flirtation quality off the charts. Sweetness level sugar. Sass degree?? Doctorate. I love this man.
I read this novel (this whole series really) when I was twelve. When I was discovering all the potential people I could be at the time and deciding what that meant. So at the time, I sucked books down and, apparently, used them to build pieces of myself that would last. I sign my notes with my initial because of ~some hot book character~ from way back when. That’s Zach. I say things take “forever and a day” because Cammie’s elevator ride takes forever and a day. There are phrases and behaviors I have now that I stole from this book, things for which I’d long ago forgotten the origin. Lines came back to me as if I’d read them days ago; I must have read them hundreds of times as a kid, thinking they were so grand.
But on the other hand, he’d offered me candy once when I was hungry, and I couldn’t help thinking that maybe that made him sort of knightlike after all. That maybe it wasn’t his fault his armor was kind of tarnished.
I loved that line as a kid; I love it now. Cross My Heart and Hope To Spy isn’t spectacular or groundbreaking (though it is so much better than the first one), and it will never make literary history. Some jokes are corny, some logic is faulty, and you can’t help but notice that the girls have rather big holes in their education in terms of the real world. But re-reading this was a reminder of the importance of some YA fiction, especially that which depicts young, capable women: the fiction we read as kids helps shapes us and stays with us long after we forget it.
This was an absolute joy to rediscover.
Oh and FOLLOW UP: 100 million stars to Zachary Goode, the lone non-toxic 2000s era bad boy I have found. Flirtation quality off the charts. Sweetness level sugar. Sass degree?? Doctorate. I love this man.