Orphan Monster Spy

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Killeen crams in plenty of great story ideas into this terrific novel that will appeal to young & old readers alike. In his notes at the end of the novel it's quite amazing to see how many real people & situations inspired this story. He also notes that when he was feeling down while writing someone told him that he "could be the YA Graham Greene" & after reading this book I think they may be right! Whatever else I read in the next twelve months Orphan Monster Spy is going to a hard one to beat as my favourite book of the year. Being a massive WWII buff who spent a fair amount of time studying this horrendous time of war, I have to appreciate the amount of effort that Killeen has gone through to capture the darkness of this time period, the ferocity of this war and the grim casualties that happen along the way. And as much as people think that this book is dark and doesn’t reflect the war correctly, I ask you to keep in mind that there was a German camp that used to skin their victims with tattoos and these were turned into gloves and lampshades. So it’s best to keep in mind that in times of war, nothing is too dark and nothing is out of the question when it comes of the human’s nasty capability. Through Sarah’s fictional adventures I want to illuminate this time and make it real for the reader. I want them to understand that history, to interrogate it and then question the events of today. Nobody should ever say ‘this couldn’t happen now’ because it can and it does. As the philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” La historia es bonita, a pesar de lo cruel de las situaciones a las que se enfrenta Sarah siendo tan pequeña. A su vez es sorprendente lo bien que relata la soledad y autonomía a la que se enfrenta el personaje, ya que a pesar de tener al Capitán, el mismo no cubre la figura paterna o de un familiar que le hace falta a Sarah, sino lo he visto casi más como un amigo-adulto. Se observa en la novela la crueldad de la Alemania nazi en su día a día, con una cuidadosa precisión en los detalles, ya que contamos con varios personajes muy observadores.

YA books didn’t really exist as a ‘thing’ in my day. There were a couple of High School romance series and of course, Judy Blume, but then there was a big gap and you just seemed to leap into adult books as though teenage, coming of age characters, didn’t matter. I was very interested in the history notes at the end though. That was interesting, well written and the best part of this whole thing. Maybe this author should write nonfiction.Let’s dive into the setting because it is one of my favourites of all time. Devil Darling Spy, like Orphan Monster Spy is set in WWII, in the midst of the Nazi regime and is a thriller, ye you guessed it, spy novel!

In questo gioco è finita Sarah, la protagonista del primo libro di questo autore, La bambina di Hitler (qui la mia recensione https://www.romanticamentefantasy.it/...). Two years ago now I read the first in this series Orphan, Monster, Spy it was a book that I really enjoyed. For me, It took all those elements of historical fiction novels about world war to and mashed them with a sort of James Bond-like quality. It was a great adventure book that you could get lost in with all the danger and peril you would expect to find in a book about a Jewish girl becoming a spy in Nazi Germany. So now we come to Devil, Darling, Spy which came out at the beginning of this year. Which I have to admit I missed the release of until now. But upon finding out about it of course I was going to jump right in. Like Inglourious Basterds for tweens, this clever YA title features Sarah, a blond, blue-eyed Jewish girl in 1939 Germany.”– The New York Post Me ha encantado este libro. La verdad es que lo imaginé solo con ver el título. Pero obvien la sinopsis, menos mal que la leí después, como siempre, pero te cuenta la historia al completa, exceptuando el final, por lo que no permite ir adentrándote en las situaciones e intriga.The whole novel felt electric, and had a very presence that I haven't had from a book in this genre for a good while ( The Color of Secrets and Susanna Kearsley are two that come to mind). A big thank you to Penguin Group and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this YA book about a young girl caught up in trying to prevent the creation of a bomb like the world has never seen. By the end of the story, it is clear that Sarah and the captain have only just begun in their mission to work together for the greater good and I look forward to reading what they get up to in their next venture. Shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book Award and the Branford Boase Award Nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal A teenage spy. A Nazi boarding school. The performance of a lifetime. Sarah has played many roles – but now she faces her most challenging of all. Because there’s only one way for a Jewish orphan spy to survive at a school for the Nazi elite. And that’s to become a monster like them. They think she is just a little girl. But she is the weapon they never saw coming…with a mission to destroy them all. This book has been a deeply thoughtful, tense, and gripping read - following Sarah’s employment as a spy, she’s taken to Africa to stop a deadly disease from being made into a weapon and saving millions of lives around the world. The characters are complicated and dimensional, and Sarah struggles with her inner demons and the bloody actions she must commit to save innocent people. While the story was an incredible read, what I found stood out the most was the research that went into the plot and world building - the author, knowing full well that he can’t speak for the millions of minorities who suffered during WII and throughout history, wanted to amplify their voices and the crimes that were committed against them. He wanted to shine a light on the parts of history that Eurocentric/ western history doesn’t like to focus on, and I feel like he does a great job providing this within a YA book.