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(*VFR: Very Fun Read)

Genius Squad by Catherine Jinks

SUCH a fantastic book! I liked its predecessor, Evil Genius, just fine, but this one went above and beyond. (You will, however, want to read these in order.) First off, it's a teen spy/criminal mastermind book, the genre of which comes close to tying with my love of the retold fairy tale genre. Secondly, it's a very smart book, meaning it is the sort of book I wish I could write but never will because it's way too mystery/logic/computer-science orientated. But it's also completely accessible, even for those of us who are definitely not left-brained. Thirdly, the characters are all highly defined: they're people we are or that we've met or that we could meet. There's tangled complications on emotional levels: with the bad guys, with the good guys; with who you can trust and who you can't. It moved me, it freaked me out, and it had me clenching the pages of the book in agony when I couldn't read fast enough to find out what was going to happen.

I was afraid Genius Squad was going to suffer from sequelitis, but the author totally pulled off an even better book than the first. I am so excited for the third book, Genius Wars, to come out.

(Note: there's some strong language.)

To celebrate the holidays we asked some of our favorite people in publishing what their favorite book was. Let us know in the comments what your favorite book is and be sure to check back throughout the week for more “favorites”.

Noa Wheeler is an assistant editor at Henry Holt Books for Young Readers.

I have never finished reading my favorite book. This may sound incongruous, but the truth is that any time I “finish” Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Words, I simply start it again. For many years, I have always been somewhere in the process of reading this quietly brilliant book. Sartre’s memoir is one of paradox: a dreamer’s stream of consciousness with an underlying strength, a distant narrative voice which ultimately paints an intimate self-portrait. (more…)

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