{YA Review} I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter

{YA Review} I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter

Cammie Morgan is a student at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, a fairly typical all-girls school-that is, if every school taught advanced martial arts in PE and the latest in chemical warfare in science, and students received extra credit for breaking CIA codes in computer class. The Gallagher Academy might claim to be a school for geniuses but it's really a school for spies. Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man in seven different ways, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she's an ordinary girl. Sure, she can tap his phone, hack into his computer, or track him through town with the skill of a real "pavement artist"-but can she maneuver a relationship with someone who can never know the truth about her?

Cammie Morgan may be an elite spy-in-training, but in her sophomore year, she's on her most dangerous mission-falling in love.(Blurb via Goodreads)

{Details} Hardcover, 284 pages, Published May 1st 2006 by Disney-Hyperion (first published April 1st 2006), Source: library

{Rating} 4/5

{Review} Where was the Gallagher Academy when I was 15? I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You is a fun, charming, adorable story of Cammie, a sophomore at the very special Gallagher Academy, navigating her first relationship while training to be a spy.

Cammie is smart, gifted, a spylet? spyling? future spy, she speaks multiple languages, can kick butt in P&E (protection and enforcement), all around awesome, but she doesn't speak boy. She's actually completely clueless about all things boy.

"All these years I'd though being a spy was challenging. Turns out, being a girl is the tricky part." (Carter, 144)

During a school assignment she meets Josh. He sees her. No one sees her, something that makes her such a good pavement artist (a tail) but he sees her. It's endlessly amusing as these brilliant girls (an awesome supporting cast of friends) try to help Cammie along, creating a complicated background to keep Josh in the dark about the real Cammie, performing surveillance and analyzing every interaction.

There are other storylines, the covert ops course and the new professor Solomon and his connection to her family, the mysteries surrounding Cammie's father, that I assume will continue into the other books in the series. We're left with a bit of a cliffhanger and I'm excited to see what happens next.

I enjoyed Carter's writing style. The story moved quickly and the language and voice immersed me in the teenage angst - in the best of ways.