Cherub: The General

I love the cherub books. As far as realism goes, I think they have to be the best teenage spy books ever. It's incredible, because it could be true, it could so easily be true, and yet you'd never know. There wasn't quite as much spying and action as there ha been in other books, but one of the things I really love about the series is the way you can see the characters, especially James, starting to mature and change. James is a very, very realistic character, and it's the same with all the rest of them. They aren't stereotyped teenagers, they aren't basic, cardboard things, they're real, and you can see them interacting in such a true to life way. But besides that, you've got the spying, a handful of gadgets, though nothing particularly ludicrous, and they're just fab. The Sleepwalker (the previous one) was absolutely gripping from the first page, and made my heart pound so fast, but you can't have that all the time. I can't remember whether I've ever reviewed a Cherub book on here or not, don't think I have. I would recommend reading them in order, because you can watch them grow up, but it doesn't really, really, really matter. The first one, the Recruit is worth reading first as it gives good background to the rest of it, and after that it doesn't matter too much. I suppose if you read everything I recomend (ie about ninety percent of what I read...) you'd never get anywhere, but I think this goes high on the good teenage books list. But if spying or action really isn't your thing, I wouldn't bother, because it's a teenage spy book. Better than Alex Rider, and if it's something you're not fussed about then I would read them, because there is a lot of 'teenagey' stuff in there (cheating on boyfriend/girlfriend, friendship issues, etc) along with the rest of it, but if you hate spy stuff, then I wouldn't read them.