Middle School

Nicki Demere is an orphan and a kleptomania. She also happens to be the U.S. Marshals’ best bet to keep a family alive . . .

The marshals are looking for the perfect girl to join a mother, father, and son on the run from the nation’s most notorious criminals. After all, the bad guys are searching for a family with one kid, not two, and adding a streetwise girl who knows a little something about hiding things may be just what the marshals need.

Nicki swears she can keep the Trevor family safe, but to do so, she’ll have to dodge hitmen, cyberbullies, and the specter of standardized testing, all while maintaining her marshal-mandated B-minus average. As she barely balances the responsibilities of her new identity, Nicki learns that the biggest threats to her family’s security might not lurk on the road from New York to North Carolina but rather in her own past.

I didn’t expect to like this book that much, but I immediately fell in love with this story.

Nicki’s character practically leaps out at you. She’s tough, has a wicked sense of humor, and is just plain awesome. But she’s not without her flaws. She’s a kleptomania, meaning she cannot resist urges to steal items whether or not she actually wants said item. In Nicki’s case, she can also snatch things so fast that no one ever catches her. I don’t like people stealing stuff, but in Nicki’s case it’s almost impressive. There’s an emotional and psychological reason behind Nicki’s kleptomania, and you’ll have to read the book to find out.

The thing I love most about Nicki is she’s not stupid. I read this other witness protection book and the girl in it was a complete idiot. She couldn’t get it through her thick head that dangerous people were coming after her family and kept whining about not seeing her sort of boyfriend. On the other hand, Nicki understands the stakes, and she goes to great lengths to protect her new family.

I don’t want to spoil a single moment in this book, so I will end this review by saying that I believe every middle school girl should give this book a chance.

This week’s Weird but True Fact about North Carolina

A street in Cary, North Carolina, is just plain AWESOME! Literally, it’s named Awesome Street.