Luke Tran

The story was very weak compared to the previous Spy School books as the plot had also seemed very rushed. My rating for this book is very low as I had high expectations for this one as the previous books had never disappointed. The cliff hangers that are added after the end of each chapter were weak as most of them felt boring and wouldn’t necessarily continue to draw one’s attention into the book. A political agenda that was added seemed very unnecessary that dragged along with the plot. Zoe’s character coming out as a lesbian seemed very random and confusing as her character had always resembled feelings for boys. In a previous Spy School book, Zoe even had a “girl talk” with Erica, talking about their feelings for boys. It felt obvious that the push for this was just to satisfy the LGBTQ standards as this part doesn’t even fit in with the series as it was more forced into it. The new character Svetlana was written horribly as she turned to the good side way too easily. Her character had been trained her whole life by her grandfather(antagonist), yet she betrayed him so easily solely based off her crush for Zoe. I’m hoping that Stuart Gibbs understands that the targeted audience for the Spy School series are not in favor of the push for a political agenda. The previous books were such a success but one small push for being political could end up losing the whole series. Gibbs is aiming at the wrong audience as they have no interest in seeing anything political nor do they wish for a Zoe and Svetlana relationship to continue. The relationship between Ben and Erica should still remain as the main focus as their relationship has brought the excitement throughout the entire series. Ten whole successful books that never involved politics had resulted in receiving positive reviews. To ensure that this series doesn’t lose their audience, I believe that Stuart Gibbs needs to write the books the same way he had written them prior to Spy School Goes North.