Ally Carter's Heist Society

My writing friend extraordinaire Jenny B. Jones is very good friend. Last year when she was in town for the ACFW conference, she drove around with me while I delivered the kids to their grandparents for four days of spoiling while I worked and taught at the conference. What does this have to do with Heist Society? Excellent question!

I pulled out my ACFW conference MP3s a week ago and started listening to them and the kids asked to listen to the Jenny lectures. Really, it's the only way I would have listened to her YA lecture, much as I adore her and her writing. But in the lecture -- which was as hilarious as she is -- she highly recommended a book by an author I'd not heard of. Now keep in mind, I'm more than a few years past YA myself :-) but I'm constantly on the lookout for books for my 10 year old to read. And this one sounded like way too much fun. I bought it. And then I inhaled it. So now I share it with you.

Heist Society is an incredibly smart book that stars a fifteen-year-old and her band of merry thieves -- literally. Kat Bishop tried to escape her families art theft ways, but is now sucked back in when someone threatens her father. The writing is crisp, funny, and action packed. These globe-trotting teens have less than two weeks to steal back paintings that have been stashed in one of the world's premier museums. The pacing and sense of humor reminded me of the Ocean's Eleven movies. Loved, loved, loved it!

Now this book is published by Hyperion and is not a Christian book. However, I found nothing in it that would prevent me from handing it to my daughter and her friends. In fact, I wish I'd bought more copies so I could do exactly that. I haven't read Ally Carter's other books, but I will be looking into the Gallagher Girls series. The only one I can speak about is this one...and I LOVED IT. You can read the synopsis here. And while the main character is Kat, she's surrounded by teenage boys -- so I think boys might enjoy it as well.

If I could write something this fun, I'd move to YA immediately.