What Annie Read // See How They Run by Ally Carter

See How They Run by Ally Carter (Embassy Row #2)
Published December 22nd, 2015
ScholasticPress

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Goodreads Synopsis:

Inside every secret, there’s a world of trouble. Get ready for the second book in this new series of global proportions–from master of intrigue, New York Times bestselling author Ally Carter.

Grace’s past has come back to hunt her . . . and if she doesn’t stop it, Grace isn’t the only one who will get hurt. Because on Embassy Row, the countries of the world stand like dominoes, and one wrong move can make them all fall down.

The twists get twistier and the turns get even more shocking in the second thrilling installment of Embassy Row.

I rated See How They Run 4/5 stars on Goodreads.

This review, like all my reviews, is spoiler-free.

See How They Run is the second book in Ally Carter’s Embassy Row Series, which is about sixteen-year-old Grace Blakely. As Grace wraps up another summer spent wandering the cobbled lanes of Adria, where her grandfather is the United States ambassador, Grace has to come to terms with the less-than-savory secrets exposed her mother’s death, the mysterious Scarred Man that no one else can see, and about Grace herself.

This book had all the classic Ally elements that I love: a cool posse of super smart kid, the underground conspiracy that no one over the age of nineteen can seem to see, and of course a mysterious murder or two. The slightly jaded heroine who fights for what she knows to be right, the swoon-worthy best buy friend (who we all want to be more than just a best guy friend), and of course some international intrigue and mayhem. See How They Run checks all the essential boxes.

Throughout the entire novel, there’s an underlying sense of something evil lurking just out of sight. Even though we can’t put a name on it or point to it on a map, we know that there’s an international, devastating conspiracy at play, and it’s going to wreak havoc when it comes to light. Grace continuously tries to expose pieces of this grand façade, but even the people she trusts most deny that anything fishy is at hand. This sense of something-wicked-this-way-cometh kept me consistently turning pages, looking for more clues to unmask the bad guys and expose the skeletons in the closet.

I found the beginning of the novel disorienting: we’re thrown into the scene without much explanation or time to get our footing. This may have been a function of the amount of time I waited after reading the first book, All Fall Down, but it took me several pages to understand what was going on and get some context on the situation.

The plot twists, and the logic leading to those twists, made a lot of sense. This may sound ridiculous, but hear me out: in middle-grade thrillers, I’ve found that sometimes the logic behind the plot can be something less than reliable. In See How They Run, the plot makes pure, undeniable sense. I didn’t see anything coming and was reading pages faster than I could turn them in anticipation of what happened next. The evidence stacked up toward the end, almost sealing our suspected murderer’s fate; the case appeared to be closed, and I had to keep reading and see how it ended.

Overall, this book absolutely oozes entertainment factor. Reading Grace’s story and watching the political intrigue unfold made me wonder why I wasn’t born into a family of international politicians and influencers. If you’re looking for a good time, this is the series for you.

Have you read See How They Run?

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