You Don't Know My Name by
Kristen Orlando
Fighter, Faker, Student, Spy.
Seventeen-year-old Reagan Elizabeth Hillis is used to changing identities overnight, lying to every friend she’s ever had, and pushing away anyone who gets too close. Trained in mortal combat and weaponry her entire life, Reagan is expected to follow in her parents’ footsteps and join the ranks of the most powerful top-secret agency in the world, the Black Angels. Falling in love with the boy next door was never part of the plan.
Now Reagan has to decide: Will she use her incredible talents and lead the dangerous life she was born into, or throw it all away to follow her heart and embrace the normal life she's always wanted? And does she even have a choice at all?
Buddy read with The Blog Squad! The lovely Amy and the amazing Di. You can read their reviews HERE and HERE.
No. just no. I started off really liking the protagonist, Reagan but soon I reached a point where I just wanted to hurl something at every single character. There is a limit to the number of one dimensional characters I can handle in one story. There's all the stereotypes -
the girl with a secret, the boy with a secret, the boy crazy girl, the mean girl... I could just go on. I do think the stereotypes wouldn't have annoyed me so much back in like 10th grade but now it just exasperates me to no end.
The adults were even more annoying that the younger characters in the book. Like I understand the author wants to show us how intelligent Reagan is but every single adult in the book was put down to show us that. Reagan has trained like a spy but never has been one and yet her ideas are a lot more brilliant than the actual experienced spies. I'm sorry, but that was just so unrealistic.
The story had great potential. I like spy stories and I was really excited for this one. I actually quite enjoyed the plot towards the middle of the book but it went downhill soon after. Also the action part of the book started quite late and the ending was UNBELIEVABLE. But not in a good way. The ending felt abrupt and didn't quite fit in with the rest of the story.
I get it that the authors wants to show us the characters are cool teens. But dropping a bunch of pop culture references out of the blue just feels weird. Also the dialogue felt so unnatural and I cringed at the conversations Reagan and Luke had. The repetition of words and phrases made me roll my eyes.
A LOT. Krav Maga is mentioned a gazillion times even when it wasn't important to the plot or the character development or anything at all.
I feel the violence in the book at the end was unnecessary and acted only as a shock factor.
- The premise
- The characters
- The way the plot turned out
- The writing
You Don't Know My Name has an interesting premise but is made bland by cardboard cut characters, plot holes and unnatural dialogues. Will not be continuing this series.
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