Now, for the sake of full disclosure (I disclose stuff all the time; be prepared), Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars are my two all-time favorite grown-up TV shows (I like a lot of kids' shows, too. *shrugs*), and to realize moments after finishing I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter that the whole book is one possible answer to the question, "What would happen if you enrolled a gonvernment-funded Veronica Mars in Chilton, the private school in Stars Hollow, fictional home of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore?", well, whoa.
Yes, yes, that was a really long, awkward, badly-written sentence. Don't care. I wasn't actually awake when I composed it.
Point is, I thoroughly enjoyed the first of Carter's Gallagher Girls novels. I dug the well-balanced aspects of narrator Cammie's real life with that of her cover life. On the one hand, the kind of life we normal peeps live is about as alien to Cammie "The Chameleon" Morgan, only daughter of a super-spy and the headmistress of Cammie's own seriously serious spy school for genius girls, as being a girl genius super-spy-in-training would be to us. Which is to say, mucho Vulcan.
Another great balance? Flippancy vs. solemnity. Some pages are devoted to silly, girly angst of the "I speak fourteen languages and not a single one of them translates to BOY!" and homework vareties, while other pages deal with heartache over lost loved ones, fear of incompetence (as all three, spy, friend, and girlfriend), and finding redeeming qualities in a new enemy. The great thing? Carter blends these themes seamlessly. The fluff is marshmallowy, deep stuff is satisfyingly subcutaneous.
Also, a Brownie Point for mentioning Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Dirty Dancing. Though, to be perfectly fair, I thought two mentions of Buffy =ed cool; three . . . enh, kind of pushing it.
So, the short version, if you're into anything like the shows mentioned above, or like a read that treads the worlds of fluffy AND textured, BUY this one.
Another great balance? Flippancy vs. solemnity. Some pages are devoted to silly, girly angst of the "I speak fourteen languages and not a single one of them translates to BOY!" and homework vareties, while other pages deal with heartache over lost loved ones, fear of incompetence (as all three, spy, friend, and girlfriend), and finding redeeming qualities in a new enemy. The great thing? Carter blends these themes seamlessly. The fluff is marshmallowy, deep stuff is satisfyingly subcutaneous.
Also, a Brownie Point for mentioning Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Dirty Dancing. Though, to be perfectly fair, I thought two mentions of Buffy =ed cool; three . . . enh, kind of pushing it.
So, the short version, if you're into anything like the shows mentioned above, or like a read that treads the worlds of fluffy AND textured, BUY this one.
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