Review Detail

Reader reviewed by sweet134

The Year of Secret Assignments [also published as Finding Cassie Crazy] is one of those books that get you sucked in from the start.

Like its companion novel, Feeling Sorry for Celia, the book is written with emails, diary entries and school notices. I know that sounds a little boring, but in fact the style makes this book so humourous.

The book begins when Ashbury High and Brookfield High decide to have a "pen-pal" project between students of the different schools. The pen-pals are chosen through a number system, and no one knows who their pen-pals are. The letters exchanged between the students are completely confidential, and the whole point of the exercise is for students to experience the "joy of the envelope".

Three girls - Lydia, Emily and Cassie - get paired up with three guys - Seb, Charlie and Matthew.

Lydia and Seb become secret agents, daring each other to do things [such as preventing science exams from happening]. Emily tries to teach Charlie how to catch the girl he admires by running an interactive dating-tutoring programme.

But Cassie and Matthew? Strange things begin to happen, because it doesn't seem that Matthew even exists...

I feel like I'm reducing this book to a series of clichés, but in reality this is really a hilarious, wacky and original novel - with a touch of the unrealistic, but hey - this is fiction, and it's so funny that it more than makes up for it.

A must read.