The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty

Summary:( from book jacket) Lydia, Emily and Cassie have always shared everything- guy problems, skipping school,even significant secret assignments. But when they're given pen pals at rival Brookfield High, they write forth in individual style. it turns out their pen pals are just as distinctive. Sebastian is a sensitive artist with a major soccer obsession. Charlie is a part time car thief and a completely sweet guy. But Matthew... well, he's either a psychopath or a figment of Cassie's imagination, neither of which is a good thing. And what starts out as a simple letter exchange leads to spy missions, false alarms, lock picking, legal drama, parental edicts, mistaken identities, and an all out war between the schools- not to mention Dates with Girls and some really excellent kissing.
Review: This book was interesting. There were certain things that I liked about it and others that I didn't. I liked the fact that the entire book is told through letters and journal entries of the characters. It was a different way of telling a story and I liked that. However, the problem I had with it was I only got to experience their characters through their own writing. for example their were parts of the book where a character would write something like "Hey we should hang out this weekend", and then in the next letter it would be "I had a lot of fun hanging out this weekend". It made me feel like I was missing something and that bothered me.
 I liked a lot of the characters in this book especially Charlie and Seb. But i didn't really feel like I got to know any of the characters on a deeper level. Because the entire book is told in letters the reader is never really inside the characters head entirely and it affected the way I felt about them. other than that thought they were all really funny and entertaining characters.
  My only other problem was that in the first half of the book the plot moves really slowly. There is almost no plot development. The later parts in the book are a lot more exciting and entertaining. Once the plot does pick up this book keeps you reading. So all in all this book was not one of my favorites but still a fairly good read if you can keep reading long enough to get sucked in.