Primary genre:
realistic fiction
Other elements:
family, friendship, mystery
Intended reader age:
9 and up
Synopsis:
Georges (the ‘s’ is silent) is having a hard time at fitting
in at school recently. Ever since his best friend changed last summer and
joined the popular group Georges has been on his own. Things only get worse
when his family has to move from the only home he has ever known to an
apartment a few blocks away. On their first day in the apartment, while taking
out the trash, he and his father come across a sign for a spy club meeting.
When his father jokingly replies to the sign and Georges is set on path he did
not expect. It is at the meeting that he meets the mysterious Safer who trains
Georges to become a spy. As Georges’s knowledge and abilities increase so does
his awareness of the state his life has fallen into.
Review:
I was very interested to see what the twist would be at the
end of this Stead novel. When I read her first book, When You Reach Me, I was not at all prepared for the direction that
the story took. For me, this was not a bad a thing. I love surprises when it
comes to books. There are so many stories that, while enjoyable and engaging,
are just too predictable to make them amazing in my eyes. Even though Liar & Spy did turn out to be a
little predictable, I still greatly enjoyed the story and where it went.
I think Georges supplies readers with a great character to
connect with. He is at a point in his life where things are falling apart.
Tween readers will especially connect with him on the changes his social life
is seeing at this moment. There are some friendships that manage to overcome
growing up, but others fall apart once the friends begin to grow and change. It
is not always possible for those differences in interests to be overcome. It
can be a very hard time in some people’s lives. So, to see Georges faced with
this challenge and to see how he ended up overcoming it is a great example for
readers. This was a topic that Stead addressed in her other book as well but,
for that story the reasoning and ending were very different.
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