Monday, December 17, 2007 ; 5:18 PM♥
-lyeziyi[:
Book review--Spy GirlsBy Elizabeth Cage
This story is about 3 young teenaged girls, who are picked by the US government to be spies for them, and work in a secret organization only known as, the Tower. Their skills- Josephine Carreaes’s knowledge of foreign languages, Caylin Pike’s athletic prowess and Theresa Hearth’s skills in technology-were the reasons for the government choosing them. The first book is about their maiden mission for the Tower-infiltrating the US Embassy and finding an important list of the locations of several nuclear weapons before a group of terrorists reached them.
Their boss was a mysterious man only known as Uncle Sam. They have never even seen his face before. He gave them instructions on their mission, and that it was to take place in the US Embassy. He also told them to be careful, as another Tower agent, Agent Frank had died mysteriously on the job. He also told them to look out for the son of the boss of the US Embassy, Nicholas, as he was their main suspect.
Upon reaching, Josephine was disguised as a translator; Caylin a housekeeper; Theresa a phone operator. Using the safety of their fake identities, they all snooped around for clues. Their breakthrough came when Caylin found Agent Frank’s address book. They pored through it excitedly, but all that they could find was an entry simply titled”Green Disk”. This led them to suspect that perhaps, the list was hidden in a disk, which was probably in a place with reference to the color green.
After reporting the find to Uncle Sam, Caylin was instructed to bug Jonathan’s phones in the hope that they could find out what he was up to. They discovered he was finding the list of nuclear weapons in exchange for two million dollars, funded by a mysterious man called Alfred. Alfred also blackmailed Jonathan into a time limit, or he would kill his father. The spies were disgusted by that Jonathan had been willing to put his own father’s life on the line for a wad of money.
While spying, the girls unexpectedly run into a short-haired woman with a dangerous aura and scornful look. They suspected her to be working with Alfred and chased her through clubs, snapping her picture and trying to get information on her. Also, they discovered a man Josephine flirted with at work, Antonio, could also be in cahoots with Alfred and Jonathan when he sent Josephine chocolates in which powerful poison was found.
The girls decide to start hunting for the “Green Disk”. They sneaked into the boss’s personal CD room and went through every one of them. When Josephine was asked by her supervisor to choose some music for an upcoming ball, they looked through more CDs she was given, hoping to find it. On the last day they were allowed for the mission, the girls suddenly realized there were still several 30 odd CDs with Josephine’s supervisor. Upon opening the door of the CD room, they bumped into Antonio and Jonathan. Running away from them, they found the CDs in an office and find the CD they were looking for in a case titled, Green Day. However, their happiness and their success did not last.
Jonathan and Antonio chased them to the road, and all the way to the FBI safe house the spies were instructed to report to.
In the FBI safe house, FBI agents cuffed Jonathan and Antonio. Suddenly, the spies saw the mysterious dangerous-looking woman there too. They yelled for her to be cuffed too, but she showed a Tower identification card and identified herself as Danielle Hall, a fellow Tower agent. The spies were stunned when she said she had been assigned to tail them and literally be their guardian angel. They were in for another surprise when the Scotland Yard came forward and asked for Jonathan to be released. Jonathan then revealed he was working with the Scotland Yard to bring down the terrorists who killed his friend, Agent Frank.
Jonathan told them how he and Agent Frank had known about the list. Apparently, when his father had given him some CDs to use for schoolwork, one particular CD could not be erased and even destroyed his entire hard disk. Thus, he had sent it to Agent Frank, a friend he knew was a technology genius. Agent Frank realized the list was hidden inside and had copied it to the Green Day CD before he was murdered.
The girls were really surprised by the way things had turned out, but were giddy with happiness at their success with their maiden mission as Alfred was also caught by the spies.
This is indeed a thrilling but also mysterious story. I felt confused with the story when I just started reading the book as there were a lot of mysteries. But as I read on, I have started to love the story as the story gets more exciting and finally everything was solved. The mysterious part of the story prompts me to read on, as I want to know what had exactly happened. And finally, at the last few pages of the book, it turned out to be a happy ending when their mission came to a success. However, there are more books to be read on, where there are more missions and mysteries to be solved about nicholas and also the final ending of the collections of the book. I could not wait to finish them at once! :D
Labels: Book review--Spy girl
Friday, December 14, 2007 ; 12:24 AM♥
-lyeziyi[:
Book review--When i was older
Author: Garret Freymann-Weyr
Title: When I was older
This story is about a 15-year-old girl called Sophie. As the title suggest, it is about how Sophie is going to grow up and being more mature, acceptance to things, and get older when the time that passes. Everything started with her little brother, Erhart died of leukemia two years ago, five days before his eighth birthday. As she was still young when Erhart died, she kept and had very little memories of him. She misses him and still cannot accept the fact that he has left her. Therefore, she carries out on-purpose memory twice a day, to remember Erhart and their happy moments like, calling each other twins. However, she can only remember the part when he was going to die. And she thinks that thinking of Erhart accidentally, when it is not the time for on purpose memory, is disrespectful, so she also tries to avoid bringing him into conversations and avoid the word “die”. She kept things that belong to him in order to think of him when there is an on purpose memory. Unfortunately, her memories of him are beginning to slip away as time passes by. She was depressed by then. She got worse when she realized that Erhart stays the same, but time changes her. To her, he will always be not quite eight, but she will keep getting older—and her life will keep changing.
Everybody told her that time would heal when Erhart died. However, she thinks that time did nothing great to her after a few years since Erhart died. Here is what she thought time has done so far: Boys whom she used to be friends with call her up for dates instead and her ambition has changed. She thinks that time has changed everything around her but does not help her remember Erhart. Her father had an affair and did wrong things, including being thrown out after Erhart died, and this makes him impossible to know about that, or their parents have split up. What had happened made her dislike time. She does not know how she will cope until she meets Francis.
Francis is her mother boy friend’s son. Francis is in the same state with Sophie. His mother died when it was a few weeks before he was eight. To remember his mother, he tattooed a teardrop on his face. Instead of disgusted by that, Sophie loves that tattoo. She can understand how he feels and so, she thinks that the tattoo is great. She confides in Francis about Erhart, and everything that was bothering her for years. Francis was a mature and great guy who had got over with his mother death, labeling that his mom’s death is his live. Sophie did not understand him at the beginning as she thinks that Erhart is an on purpose memory, instead of her, being part of the memory. She had finally understood Francis after being with him for a period of time when he taught Sophie a lot about losing someone and saving memories. She had also begun to forgive and understand her father better.They started out as friends, but soon Sophie realized that Francis wants to be her boyfriend too. She could not accept that fact at the start as she considered girls who date and rely on boyfriends are A-girls(her way of classifying them). She did not want to be one and so, she did not accept dates from boys. However, after Francis told her about love, dating and encouraged her, listen and talk to her, she starts to accept everything. She gave herself permission to grow up and also gave Francis a chance to be her boyfriend.
This novel is well-written as it explores emotions of a normal young girl who is experiencing love, loss and transition while growing up. This novel is suitable for teenagers. It is a very touching love story of a growing teenager. I love this novel. I hope you would like the story after reading my summary! :D
Labels: Book review--When i was older