A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee (3/5)

In 1853, Mary Quinn, a 12-year-old thief was put on trial and was then sentenced to death, however, she was saved by the headmistress of Miss Scimshaw’s Academy for Girls. However, after years of “normal” schooling, she meets with two teachers and they decide to admit her into the agency, a secret group of spies to accomplish missions. Her first deed is to discover why a merchant’s ships were disappearing. This merchant was Mr. Thorlod, and she takes the place of the companion to a musically talented daughter to hear anything about this business. Mary decides to take matters into her own hands and investigate by herself, however, James Easton, a brother of her companion’s suitors gets tangled with her, and they start investigating together. This mission earns her an enemy who is willing to do anything to get what they desire, and we’ll see if Mary gets out alive, as she did before. This novel wasn’t very interesting in the beginning, and it was hard to decipher, and when it was progressing, it wasn’t very gradual and pretty direct, and also, the main character’s character was not built very effectively, however, the suspense occurring during the mission and the presence of an adversary helped the mystery aspect, as well as the little bits of information about how women were treated during this time. This novel does a great job of highlighting the terrible roles of women during this time, and how there were efforts to improve their societal standings. This novel mixes many different important aspects of good novels, like romance, coming of age, and mystery, however, I did not find it enjoyable and it was boring to read, but some parts were very entertaining, like the introduction of the agency, but as a collective, it was not very good. To future readers, make sure you analyze all hints given by Lee, and also make connections to the real world, as there are so many possible places to, but overall, it was not a good nor bad read. Please make sure to enjoy the suspense in some parts, and also have a good time reading it.