The Recruit

The Recruit

Recently, a friend recommended the CHERUB series. So that very day I went to the library and checked the first book of the series: The Recruit. After the first few pages, I was hooked. The Recruit is written by Robert Muchamore and was published by Hodder Children’s Books in 2004. I really enjoyed reading                 The Recruit and as soon as I finished this book I went out and bought the second one and ordered the WHOLE SERIES (13 books). This shows how good theses books are.

Right from the beginning of The Recruit the author drew me into the life of James Choke. James is a mischievous 12-year-old that isn’t exactly a bad kid, but always seems to get into trouble. After getting into a huge fight at school, James is in huge trouble. Later that day there is an accident involving his mum. Now James is expelled from his school and now without his mum. Nothing is really looking up for James and to top it off James’ sister is in the custody of his abusive alcoholic stepfather and James is put into a boy’s home. His life is going downhill and he starts hanging around a gang and gets arrested. Next thing he knows he is in a strange room. He doesn’t know at the time but his life is going to get pretty exciting. It turns out that undercover agents have been watching him during his stay at the boy’s home and are interested in him to work for CHERUB (a secret organization that uses teenagers as agents). He then goes on to basic training, a 100-day training course that prepares CHERUB’s agents for anything.

I really enjoy this book because I can understand what James is feeling. We are both around the same age, so throughout the book, as things are happening, sometimes both of us have the same reactions. Another reason that I liked The Recruit is that I’m a big fan of the Alex Rider series, so I do enjoy the teenage spy idea.

The Recruit is the perfect mix of action, adventure, and humour, which makes these books perfect for teenage boys. The writing style of Robert Muchamore is very different to any books I’ve read. I have not really found a book/series that I have really enjoyed for a while. So discovering this series was great for me and will get me reading again. I think this book is a fresh new twist to all the other secret spy books out there.

Liam, MS