My Book Review

Well, the book I've decided to review is the first book in the CHERUB series, The Recruit, written by an ex-
Private Investigator Robert Muchamore.
It was recommended to me by a friend on the basis that it was “better than the Alex Rider books”, which I'm a big
fan of. So, with high hopes but low expectations.

The story follows an 11 (becoming 12 as the story progresses) year old boy called James (Yes, like Bond), who,
after the death of his mother, is force to live in an orphan's home. He falls into the wrong crowd but still, strangely
enough in my opinion, ends up invited to work in a special branch of British Military Intelligence (BMI) called
CHERUB, which “employs or recruits” orphaned teenagers to work as undercover operatives.
After what is considered a brutal training regime, James is ready to undertake his first mission, going undercover
in a South Wales hippie camp in order to foil an group assassination attempt.
After his mission is complete, he's rushed to hospital since it is discovered he might have anthrax from the
bacteria-filled canisters he's helped stop being used. But, after a few days rest, he returns to the hippie camp to
smooth things over with his cover story. When he returns to CHERUB at the end of the book, he gets promoted to
a navy shirt.... Not something I'd be happy with if I'd just risked my life (don't forget the anthrax) to save some
rich businessmen.

So, I read the book and I still stand that I prefer the very first page of Stormbreaker over the entire of this book. I
still plan to try out the next book in the series but, unless it stands out as a good book, I'll be stopping there.

James is a typical teenager, quiet at times but explodes into a rage at a bat of the eyelids. When in the orphan
home, James joins a group of rebellious teens even though he knows what he's doing is wrong and that he doesn't
really fit in. Later on in the novel, we find that he values his friendships.

Now, I don't want to sound like I'm trying to skip out work (no matter how much I may like to) but I really don't
feel that there are any other main characters sort to speak or that I know enough about them from this first book in
a long series of novels.
What I will say about them and James however, is how I don't feel that the characters were written out well
enough for me to care if they were killed from anthrax due to the hippie terrorists or joints straight from the
ordinary hippies themselves.

The biggest thing I didn't like about this novel was James' interaction with the teenage girls. Out of the, only real,
three teenage girls in the story, James was attracted to each of them. Now that's all very well and I'm sure if you
asked most teenage boys going through puberty, they'd probably feel the same way. But, James is 12 by the end of
the novel, and even with puberty happening at different times for everyone, this part of James' character didn't
seem to fit in or “feel right”.

Some little praise must be given to the book for the story however, but I still find both the story and characters
mediocre at best.
After researching the writing process of this book on Wikipedia, I've found that the Muchamore wrote this on a
“part time basis” and it was basically included everything he thought his nephew would want to read in a novel of
this calibre. Ironically, by the time Muchamore finished this book, his nephew was “too old” to read it.

Perhaps in the hand of a, in my opinion, better or more experienced writer, this really could've been better than the
Alex Rider series.

Unless you're a big spying teenagers fan (obviously not their parents then), I'd stay away from this book, if you
can... with the exception that it's passing the time between the new Alex Rider book (In which I recommend re-
reading the old AR books) or, trying not to be too crude, you're on the lavatory for most of the day. I only hope
that the film adaptation of this novel, coming out very early December this year, will raise my view on the premise
of the novel because I don't believe my view of the book will be changing anytime in the future, near or far.

By Thomas Neville (Using Jonathan Ross' reviews on the Film series as an influence and guide).