Nowhere to Run – Book Review

Title: Nowhere to Run

Author: Jude Watson

Series: The 39 Clues: Unstoppable

Reviewer: Nick

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. They made a third series? There are now nineteen books in the three 39 Clues series. Nineteen is a lot, even for the most diligent reader.

After the supreme disaster that was book six of Cahills vs. Vespers (series two), Day of Doom, let's just say I wasn't liking the 39 Clues series that much. I mean, that book was awful. Horrifyingly bad. Usually, I don't read sequels to horrifyingly bad books. But, you have to remember that each 39 Clues book is written by a different author. So, I decided to give the third series a try anyway.

Jude Watson, the author of Nowhere to Run, is no stranger to the series. She's written 3 1/4 other books in the series, all of which were good. Unfortunately, this new one—not so good.

It falls into many of the traps you'd expect to see in a nineteen-book old series. It has that I've-seen-it-before feeling, there are no really surprising twists, etc. To the author's credit, she doesn't crazily overcomplicate everything, but still.

The plot of the entire third series is that (minor spoiler) someone has stolen the serum and its 39-part formula. It was inevitable, really, as the authors have been dangling that over our heads for the entire series. Maybe a little too much. It just doesn't seem like an earth-shattering catastrophe anymore. After this earth-shattering catastrophe, our characters would have to do something about it, right? Wrong, apparently. They do absolutely nothing productive the entire book. I want a storyline, people, not just angst about Amy's love life and stunts that we've seen before.

Maybe the one good new thing in this book is the fact that Amy and Dan are being followed by paparazzi. It's funny to see that even they're not immune to the power of the tabloids.

So, will I read book number twenty? Yeah, I guess so. I'm too invested in these characters to just leave them hanging.

Final score: 7.2 out of 10

The next book in the series, Breakaway, by new-to-the-series author Jeff Hirsch, comes out on January 28, 2014, if you're still reading the series by then.

Next review: Allegiant by Veronica Roth

– Nick