I'D TELL YOU I LOVE YOU, BUT THEN I'D HAVE TO KILL YOU

Carter, Ally. 2006. I’D TELL YOU I LOVE YOU, BUT THEN I’D HAVE TO KILL YOU. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2006.

Ally Carter’s novel, I’d Tell You I Love You, But then I’d Have to Kill You, can be summed up in two words: highly entertaining. Suspend reality for a few hours and spend them with Cammie Morgan, a 15-year-old who is a student at Gallagher Academy—a top secret boarding school for girls who are spies-in-training. When Cammie falls for a local boy, Josh, she tries to juggle two lives because, of course, he can never know about her life at Gallagher.

For her sophomore year, Cammie and her friends are finally permitted to take on their first field experience, which is where she encounters Josh for the first time. Using her spy skills, she tracks him down and accidentally-on-purpose bumps into him. Cammie, who is known as “The Chameleon”, is excited that for the first time somebody really sees her. Unfortunately, though she wants nothing more than to confide in him, she must keep her real identity a secret.

For a novel about amateur spies, the book never quite makes it to a level that can be called suspenseful which is also noted by one reviewer: “The teen's double life leads to some amusing one-liners, and the invented history of the Gallagher Girls is also entertaining, but the story is short on suspense” (Doyle). Instead, it’s the comedy/romance combination that will win over the audience and have them searching for the rest of the titles in the series. The book isn’t completely lighthearted, for Cammie is also dealing with the loss of her father and her relationship with her mother, who is also the headmistress of the Academy.

Reference List:

Doyle, Miranda. 2006. Review of I’d Tell You I Love You, But then I’d Have to Kill You, by Ally Carter. School Library Journal.