Robin Benway's Also Known As is a little bit silly but a lot fun. She’s not brilliant at voices, but it was still clear who was speaking. Plus, her true affection for the characters really does shine through. She’s not the best narrator ever by any means, but I still think it’s cool that she read her own book.

Robin Benway does a pretty good job narrating. I had some suspension of disbelief issues with the young girl being a spy thing, but I’m willing to set those aside for fun times. Anyway, I’m just glad to have a romance with a nice boy. He treats Maggie right, and, if anything, he’s too kind and forgiving of her. His rep as a bad boy has been seriously overplayed, and he’s actually one of the sweetest YA boys I’ve read about and not remotely a badass.

Also, Maggie’s parents are loving and involved in her life, so three cheers for that.Īs mentioned, Jesse Oliver is a great love interest. While I do like Maggie, I think I would like her slightly more if she had truly loved Roux more than she seems to do. Everyone’s got a whole lot of personality, especially Roux, who might have been my personal favorite. The characters are great, and definitely where Robin Benway shines as an author. Her goal: to befriend Jesse Oliver, gain access to his father’s house, and obtain the article that the dad was going to run about the spy organization Maggie belongs to. Of course, her mission involves enrolling in high school and befriending the cute boy with a criminal record. At 16, she finally has her first solo mission and she is excited. She’s an expert safe cracker and travels the world with her spy parents being a spy. After Peach leaves with her new parents, Grace tells her parents that she “want to find birth mother” (10).Maggie’s a spy born and raised. Peach is born “right when Max being crowned homecoming king” (8).Ĭatalina and Daniel offer to keep the adoption open so Grace can see Peach, whom they have named Milly, but Grace “ trust herself” to “not her back” (9). Grace forms an attachment to Peach, especially as she becomes more isolated at school and at home. Grace and her parents give the baby up for adoption, and she chooses a couple named Catalina and Daniel. Grace found out she was pregnant during her second trimester, and by then, her baby was as big as a peach, so Grace started calling her unborn baby “Peach.” She knows she can’t keep the baby because “Peach would need Grace in ways that she couldn’t give to her” (5). However, she ends up giving birth to her daughter on homecoming night. The first section of the novel (Chapters 1-27) is titled “Falling.” Sixteen-year-old Grace planned to spend her homecoming dance with her friends and Max, “her boyfriend of just over a year” (3).

Robin benway