The Blonde Identity by Ally Carter

A fast-paced, hilarious road trip rom-com about a woman with amnesia who discovers she's the identical twin sister of a rogue spy... and must team up with a rugged, grumpy operative to stay alive.

It's the middle of the night in the middle of Paris and a woman just woke up with no memory.

She only knows three things for certain:

1. She has a splitting headache.
2. The hottest guy she has (probably) ever seen is standing over her, telling her to run.
And oh yeah...
3. People keep trying to kill her.

She doesn't know who. Or why. But when she sees footage of herself fighting off a dozen men there's only one explanation: obviously. . . she's a spy!

Except, according to Mr. Hot Guy, she's not. She's a spy's identical twin sister.

Too bad the only person who knows she's not the woman they're looking for is this very grouchy, very sexy, very secret agent who (reluctantly) agrees to help her disappear.

That's easier said than done when a criminal organization wants you dead and every intelligence service in the world wants you caught. Luckily, no one is looking for a pair of lovesick newlyweds on their honeymoon. And soon they're lying their way across Europe--dodging bullets and faking kisses as they race to unravel a deadly conspiracy and clear her sister's name.

But with every secret they uncover, the truth shifts, until she no longer knows who to trust: the twin she can't remember or the mysterious man she can't let herself forget...

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Ally Carter is in my hall of fame, so I was eager to read her first stab at an adult rom-com with her signature wit and global stakes. First and foremost, I don’t love amnesia storylines as I find them overly convenient, but she did a fantastic job with the same in book four of her famous Gallagher Girls series, Only the Good Spy Young. Ally Carter handles tropes in such a self-aware way, so they come off as intentional rather than lazy.

The book begins with an identical twin, name unknown, waking up in Paris alone. She’s bloodied and in a snowbank, with a male spy over her and yelling at her to run. Apparently, her sister is wanted by a “very bad man” and the CIA in tandem, having double crossed them both. And of course, everyone thinks she’s her sister. Our main character has no money, no prospects, is 27 and a burden to her parents…(kidding, I just watched Pride and Prejudice last night.) But she does have no money and no idea where to go.

PACING

Despite my love of Ally Carter and how many boxes the synopsis checks off, I had a difficult time getting into the book for its first half because of the pacing. Most books have the opposite problem—too slow—but I found The Blonde Identity to be much too fast. It’s dizzying. The characters are immediately off on a sprint through the city, the first chapters flying by in a series of gunshots and risky jumps and explosions. The trouble is that this never really slows down enough for me to get a feel for the characters or the core of the story, a domain in which Carter normally excels. It was lacking that sizzle, that depth, that characterizes most of her books for me. Certain choices, like not revealing names in the POV chapter headings until the characters discover them for themselves, have the effect of disconnecting me rather than grounding me. Throughout the book, both characters felt too far away for me to really appreciate them, much less the two together.

I could see Carter deciding this purposefully, i.e. “I’m going to write a book that’s all chase scenes” per her forte, but even then, tried-and-true proportions exist for a reason. Her traditionally speedy chapters were fabulous little snapshots as always, but because they were also showing these fast-paced scenes, it was hard to keep track of what was going on or what we were supposed to feel because there wasn’t enough room to sink into it. Because of that, The Blonde Identity felt less satisfying to me.

ROMANCE & TROPES

Eventually, towards the end, we got more of that core that I’d expected, once the two characters were physically landing in one location for longer than 30 seconds. The book itself is fun despite its choppiness, with a bit more heat and chemistry, although scenes are fade-to-black in a way appropriate for younger and more modest readers.

In the same way that Gallagher Girls is an excellent “young YA” book for those readers graduating into teen reads for the first time, The Blonde Identity would be a stellar choice for those delving into the adult romance world for the first time. It’s insta-lovey, which fits with the Hallmark genre that Carter screenwrites for and loves.

Once names came into play, the speed felt better, although it was still too quick for me. Carter took plenty of risks to differentiate this one from her previous work, which I appreciated even when they didn’t work. She telegraphed her tropes, meaning she used them as a wry wink to the audience rather than needing them to feel genuine. I was fully expected and liked this; The Blonde Identity is nothing if not self-aware.

PLOT

The actual conflict itself didn’t feel high stakes although the actions and motivations did. They needed to find a flash drive that her sister had stolen, so needed to work their way over to Switzerland to pose as her and get into the bank, complete with slight plot holes of convenience. The action was exciting but constant, so I started to get numb to it.

While I appreciate how short and snappy the book is overall, I think her other books work because of the attachment you have to the characters, setting, story, etc,. You get this sense of a deeper history, and you’re just getting snippets, so your imagination fills in these rich, resonant gaps. Because we don’t have a history or connection in which to ground ourselves, the plot and romance feel shallower in this read.

SMALL DETAILS

Also, quick pet peeve! The fact that the main love interest guy called the girl “lady” constantly felt like suuuuuch a turn-off that I could not get over it. Each time it came up, I visibly cringed.

One aspect I also found strange was that Carter re-used some factiods and character signifiers from her Gallagher Girls series that avid re-readers may recognize—ex: a nice girl says “oopsie daisy” instead of cursing, characters see motion more easily than stillness so you should freeze if you’re avoiding someone searching for you in a crowd. This wouldn’t have been a problem if she’d changed audiences like ten years ago in real time, but I found it an odd choice considering that the book is positioned as being for the now-adult readers who devoured Gallagher Girls way back when. Most picking up The Blonde Identity are doing so likely because they read Gallagher Girls.

As an identical twin, I’m also very picky about how twins are used, but because the twin aspect really didn’t come up too often, it wasn’t an issue here.

OVERALL

Anyways, I was expecting more and so closed the book feeling emptier than I wanted. The book felt overall pretty flat to me, like it was a ground zero draft and could have been a lot more fleshed out.

Ex: we’re in Paris! That could have had this lush atmospheric detail, but instead it was just a side-note; it could have been swapped out with any other location, and the reader wouldn’t have noticed because there was no detail.

Still, I’m harsh on Carter because I love her writing and style and previous work.

I respect her creative risks, even when they don’t work, so I’ll still likely read the sequel of this in case this is a one-off critique, but I hope the pacing and proportions are wildly different. In the next book, we’ll at least have more of a foundation going into the first half of the action. Fundamentally, my main issue is that it wasn’t grounded in much of anything, so I could never get my footing enough to appreciate everything.

For those fresh to Ally Carter and therefore unspoiled by the rest of her five-star-worthy canon, you may like the breakneck action, clean romance, and her effervescent zingers and banter. The situations are goofy; you definitely have to suspend reality, but if you can, it’s light, frothy, and fast.

It’s definitely a quick read you could knock out in an afternoon by the pool.