Mundie Moms

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

NOT IF I SAVE YOU FIRST by Ally Carter / Book Review #NotIfISaveYouFirst


By: Ally Carter
Published by: Scholastic
Released on: March 27, 2018
Purchase from: ScholasticAmazon | B&N
Add it to Goodreads
Rating: 4 stars 
Source: purchased book 

Bestselling author Ally Carter returns with an exciting stand-alone novel, about a girl stranded in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness with the boy who wronged her . . . as an assassin moves in. 

Maddie thought she and Logan would be friends forever. But when your dad is a Secret Service agent and your best friend is the president's son, sometimes life has other plans. Before she knows it, Maddie's dad is dragging her to a cabin in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. 


No phone. No Internet. And not a single word from Logan. 

Maddie tells herself it's okay. After all, she's the most popular girl for twenty miles in any direction. (She’s also the only girl for twenty miles in any direction.) She has wood to cut and weapons to bedazzle. Her life is full. Until Logan shows up six years later . . . And Maddie wants to kill him. 

Before that can happen, an assailant appears out of nowhere, knocking Maddie off a cliff and dragging Logan to some unknown fate. Maddie knows she could turn back and get help. But the weather is turning and the terrain will only get more treacherous, the animals more deadly. 

Maddie still really wants to kill Logan. But she has to save him first.

Ally Carter is one of my favorite go to YA authors. I can always count on her books being 'just the kind of read I needed'. Her newest release is no exception to that. This book has everything I've come to except in an Ally Carter book. A tough character who knows how to handle herself in the Alaskan wilderness, a complicated relationship with some history, spies, danger, and a kissy scene or two. 

Maddie was such a fun character to get to know. I loved that she can handle herself, and knows how to take care of herself, especially in the Alaskan wilderness. While she may not be a huge fan of her living arrangements in Alaska, she can definitely fend for herself. I loved that she knows how to handle a hatchet. You'll know what I'm talking about when you read about her cool hatchet. She also had me snickering over her comments about what she misses in normal civilization, and what she can't live without even if she's in the middle of nowhere. Yes, lipgloss is a must no matter where you're at. 

While I loved Maddie right off the bat, Logan I may not have liked as much, just for Maddie's sake. Okay, he is likable, and her reaction to him is spot on. Logan and Maddie have a complicated history, and I may have laughed at some of their predicaments they end up in. To match Maddie's wilderness survival skills, Logan is well educated, and knows how to think his way through situations on the spot. Something that comes with growing up in the White House. Together they work their way through a complicated and dangerous plot to get revenge on their families, that sends them through the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. In this book, the most dangerous things out there aren't the wildlife. 

I love that this book was set in the Alaskan wilderness. Ally's descriptions were vivid, making it incredibly easy to visualize. I liked that there were elements of danger, not just with the plot twist, but being out in the middle of the wilderness. Not only did I love this book's setting, I also liked how the book opened up with the younger Maddie and Logan. Ally allowed readers to see the relationship they had when they were younger, as well as their parents, and the ultimate down fall of why Maddie's dad whisked her away to Alaska. This also ties into the plot twist later on in the book.

This book was a fun read! It's definitely what I'd call 'a signature Ally Carter book'. Meaning it has all the elements I've come to except in her books. Sure it doesn't have Hale & Kat (go read her Heist Society series if you haven't yet), but it does have Maddie and Logan, and they were characters I really enjoyed getting to know. 

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