I was really looking forward to this book. Audrey, Wait was one of the first books I read as a new book blogger and I loved it. I still love that book. I've given away a lot of my books, but Audrey, Wait holds a special place on my shelf. So you can imagine that I had high expectations for Also Known As. And it mostly lived up to them. But my main disappointment came from the ending. I'll get to that in a minute. But first, what I liked.I am pretty much a huge fan of Robin Benway's writing. She's hilarious and her sense of humor really meshes with mine. I found myself laughing out loud a lot and really enjoying the funny moments in this book. And there were a LOT of them. I expected this to be a lighthearted read, but I did expect there to be a little more tension than there was.I also really enjoyed the characters in this one. Though perhaps they were not the best developed characters I have ever read, they certainly were a lot of fun. Though I really enjoyed the protagonist, Maggie, my true favorite was her best friend Roux. She's ostracized at school because she did the very bad thing of sleeping with her ex-best friend's boyfriend. Roux used to be a horrible person. But Roux is more than just the bad thing she did. She becomes a great friend to Maggie; she's quirky, funny, and kind of pathetic because all she wants is a family that cares and hers doesn't.The book is fast paced and fun, but this is kind of where I ran into problems. It's supposed to be a spy thriller, right? I expected there to be more of that in the story. It's a lot more about high school and romance and teen problems than it is about actual crime, safe cracking, and spying. If you are looking for a teenage James Bond, you will not find it in this book. There is VERY little of that. And that's also why I was disappointed in the ending. It wrapped up too neatly. It was too lovey-dovey, and I didn't feel it was realistic. I know this is fiction, but real life doesn't work this way. And yeah, it's just a personal preference of mine, but I like my books to feel realistic. The writing kind of fell off and disappointed me with its quality towards the last thirty pages. I expected there to be a decent twist and there wasn't. It was all pretty predictable which underwhelmed me to say the least. And if I may be frank, though it was fun, it was a little hard to suspend disbelief for this one. The mystery was not much of a mystery, and though it was fun, the spies in this book weren't very good at their jobs. Though it was funny to watch them try. But this book gets 3 stars because I still enjoyed the writing, humor, and characters. Just because the plot let me down a bit, I still did enjoy it and I recommend the book to someone looking for fun and a few good laughs. I do believe, however, that Audrey, Wait is a much better book by this author and I would recommend that before I recommended this one.
