Spies Never Quit by M. Taylor Christensen

First Line:

The humid Atlanta air settled around Mari like a sticky sweatshirt as she walked briskly down the sidewalk past the science building heading towards the baseball field.
spies never quit by m. taylor christensen

It has been a long time since I have read a YA cozy mystery. I have gotten caught up in other genres, and these books got pushed to the back burner. That all came to a stop last month when I decided that I would read Spies Never Quit. I am glad that I did because I enjoyed this book a ton!

Spies Never Quit has a face-paced plotline. The book starts with a bang and doesn’t slow down. There was a tiny bit of lag in the plotline in the middle of the book (when Mari was undercover). It didn’t affect the plotline, and the author was able to keep the plotline zipping along.

I thought Mari was a powerful main character. She adapted quickly to everything that the bad guys threw her way. She was also willing to do whatever it took to free her mother from the bad guys. What I liked the most was that the author humanized her. She wasn’t an instant spy, far from it. She was an average college girl who got sucked into that life by her mother’s kidnapping.

What I liked the most about this book was the girl power vibe. I liked that the girls (Mari and the Banana Girls) didn’t need a man to figure out how to rescue her mother. It made the book so much more fun to read.

Spies Never Quit is a clean read. While there is no sex or sexual situations in the book, there are some very mild kissing scenes—nothing graphic and, honestly, sweet.

I wish the author had spent more time on Mari’s mother’s technology (the swarming nanobots). I was very interested in that but could only glean bits and pieces of what she did from conversations between the bad guys and from what Mari/the Banana Girls knew.

I liked that there were strong parallels to Charlies’ Angels, James Bond, and Batman. What I would give to have the cars that those girls did!!!

The end of Spies Never Quit was action-packed. I loved how the storylines were resolved. I am hoping that there will be a book two because I would love to read it!!

I would recommend Spies Never Quit to anyone over the age of 16. There is mild violence, mild language, and some very mild kissing.