SPY ACADEMY

Brooklyn Taylor is an agent with Spy School.

Normally I would say that she was a student at the institution but in Taylor's case that is not exactly accurate. She is being assigned there undercover to help root out a traitor; she is chosen for the task because she is already a trained operative with a year or two experience and at nineteen years of age, she looks young enough to pass for someone two years younger. Hence she is a student and not one. This is nothing different for her as "I've spent my entire life undercover."

As she explains it near the beginning of the first recorded adventure, "Here's the thing about me - even though I graduated from Spy School when I was seventeen-years-old, I've never actually attended the school. I've never even seen it in person. I, like many other students, had parents who were deep undercover around the time I was supposed to attend school. Seeing as I was a huge part of my parents' cover, all of my training and schooling was done off campus. So now that I'm standing here, reliving all my childhood fantasies, I can't help but be thankful that I wasn't here through my awkward teenage years."

Regarding the earlier statement about looking younger, she laments that she might be about to turn 20 but to her, "I still look like a fetus". As an example she recounts she recently went to see an 'R' rated movie and was almost not admitted as no parent was with her.

One major factor to state about Taylor, one what sort of overshadows everything else, is that she is brash. Her first day in class as a 17-yr old, this 19-yr old sees and gets the hots for teacher Jaxon Duran and suggests, again in class, that they get together that evening. When he rebuffs in an annoying manner that he does not date students, she counters that she was not talking about a date - rather she was suggesting they just head back to her dorm room! Okay, brash and maybe .. I have no words.

For all her flirtations, she lets us know that "there is only one rule I live by, and that is no attachments." She will find that rule is thrown out the window when it comes to Jaxon. 

I read the author's warning about it being more of a NA than a YA series but it did not register until the second page when Brooklyn Taylor talks about a young Frenchman she was seeing as part of her cover and was getting tired of him although he was still good in bed. Okay, so definitely not so YA. Got it.

Now, for all her brashness and her sauciness, she still is young and that does kind of get confusing. One moment she is grown-up and next she is not. No criticism here, though, as my wife would say the same about me.

Oh, one more observation, this one dealing with Spy Academy versus Spy School. Taylor is always talking about it as the latter but the former is how it is marketed. Not really important, I will grant you. Just odd.