I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have To Kill You (Gallagher Girls #1)

Reader reviewed by Jocelyn

I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have To Kill You is definitely an interesting title. Doesn't it just have you itching to know more? I sure was intrigued by this title, and I'm happy to say that, while on a train headed for Philadelphia last Wednesday, I had an opportunity to read this book that's been calling to me from my to-read shelf. I was not disappointed; Ally Carter's book is awesome!

Cammie Morgan is a student at the Gallagher Academy For Exceptional Young Women. It is a school for geniuses, technically, but everyone in the building (and very, very few people outside it) knows what's really going on. These girls are being trained to be spies.

Of course, no one's forcing them to take up epsionage for a living once they graduate, but it's pretty easy to figure out what they're meant to do; they study code breaking, martial arts, and, once they're sophomores (like Cammie and her friends), Covert Operations. And it's not every school that had an alert system for when visitors come that hides every trace of what people do there every day and turns it into a regular boarding school for rich girls (the way the people in the surrounding town think the Gallagher Academy is).

Speaking of the people in town, Cammie actually meets one of them on her first Covert Operations mission! The mission does not go as well as it could, but something miraculous does happen: Cammie, who hasn't really known any boys for years, and is known for her ability to become invisible at school (a compliment at a school like hers), is noticed by a boy.

Josh is a rather cute boy, too. And the fact that he notices Cammie makes them practically soul mates already! Of course, things are never as simple as they seem. Even though Cammie and her friends can hack into Josh's email and implant a tracker in his shoe to make sure he's not trying to infiltrate the school through her, there's something Cammie isn't sure she can pull off: being a normal girl, especially when Josh can't find out the truth about Cammie's life. Can she and Josh be together, despite all of the obstacles in their way?

Ally Carter has written a fun page-turner in ITYILYBTIHTKY (wow, even shortening the title is really long), with a pretty awesome idea behind it, too; spies are inherently interesting (like pirates or superheroes), and teenage girl spies, also struggling with the dilemmas facing normal teenagers even without the added problems caused by the whole secret life thing, are even cooler! Ally Carter's book is a quick and funny read that lives up to the expectations set by the revelations made by the jacket copy, with its interesting characters, cool gadgets, and romance. The book is one of the best kind--set up for a sequel (and who wouldn't want more about Cammie and her friends and family?), but still a great story by itself. And readers are in luck--the next book starring the Gallagher Girls, Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy, will be out sometime next fall!

Reader reviewed by Kristin

I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You is about a girl named Cammie who is chameleon-a person who blends in with her surroundings. Her mother is the headmaster at the all-girl boarding school she goes to, which happens to be a school for genius spies. She knows 14 languages, but after meeting a hot guy, she cannot figure him out at all.

I can't explain it at all so go read the Amazon summary which makes much more sense! Anyways, I realized that we are all like Cammie, we feel like our friends are prettier, skinnier, smarter, etc. than us and since we are so average, we just blend in.

I loved the parts where Cammie, Bex, and Liz were trying to decipher the "guy code" all by themselves. They were looking him up on the CIA database, intercepting his emails, and even trifling through his trash. I guess this is an exaggerated version of what all girls do when they want to know what the heck the guy is thinking and he likes us or not.

This book has an ending that is definitely not what I expected, but satisfying nevertheless.

Reader reviewed by the book muncher

Meet Cameron Morgan. She's just an ordinary girl, if you consider being a genius and a spy trainee normal.


What I really liked about this book was that it combined two of my favorite genres; I would consider it both an action and a romance novel. Cammie the Chameleon falls in love with a totally unsuspecting local town boy. Of course, she cant tell him why shes so smart and that shes going to an elite school for spy training. Soon, her life becomes more complicated than passing her next Covert Operations test.


Cammie has to invent a false identity and weave a web of lies, including but not limited to a cat named Suzie and being homeschooled for religious reasons, in order to get closer to Josh. But no matter how good a spy she is, the cracks soon show. Finally, the truth has to come out. And everyone knows that the truth has consequences.


The storyline is pretty predictable until you reach the surprise ending. This book is really cute and a fun read. I would highly recommend this book and its sequel, Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy.

Reader reviewed by Alexandra M.

THIS IS BY FAR. BY FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR: MY FAVORITE BOOK IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. I'm not even kidding. Before ILKY I NEVER read and I hated it. But ILYK opened a completely new world of "chick lit" and "teen" to me that I never really knew about. In fact, now, I have...lets see...13 books for me to read THAT I OWN.

Cammie Morgan, as you may know or not know, goes to an all-girls school for spies, Bex and Liz are her best friends. She then falls in love with Josh, a normal guy living in a perfect, peachy keen, neighbor-borrows-sugar-from-you-to-bake-a-pie sort of town. BUT her mother is the headmistress--causing Cammie to go unseen and undercover and really use her spy-skills to see Josh. And figure out if he's not some secret spy for the school.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get this book it will suck you in like a vaccuum cleaner! Ally Carter is the best!

Reader reviewed by Jennie

Id Tell You I love you, But then I would have to kill you.

The Book was about a girl who goes to an all girls school&..for teen spies. She meets this guy one night while on a practice mission. She likes him a lot, but he can never know how she really is&
It was a good book. I liked the book a lot! Cant wait for the sequel!

Reader reviewed by Meghan W.

Cammie isn't your normal girl. She doesn't go to a normal school, she doesn't have normal friends, and her life definitely isn't normal.

Cammie goes to an all girls school for spies. And her mother is the headmistress.

Of course, no one knows it's a school for spies. They just think it's a boarding school for preppy rich girls who's mommys and daddys send them there. In reality, that's the farthest from the truth.

Callie is at the local fair one night, and she runs into this guy Josh. Of course, being a spy and everything, she's got a cover. So Josh doesn't know she's a spy. She leaves, and Josh still really wants to talk to her. He tries to talk to her the next couple times they run into each other, but she keeps running off, since she's not supposed to hang out with him.

Eventually she gives in, and starts hanging with him every once in awhile. Of course, to do this she has to sneak out of school, which requires the help of her friends, Liz, Bex and their new roommate Macey, who just happens to be an expert in the world of guys.

These girls are spies, and they are trained to find out everything they can about a person. Even if finding out means hacking into his school's computer system, ransacking his house, and even going through his garbage to see what he likes. And they have to do it all without getting caught and having to attend some of the hardest classes in the toughest school, with very watchful (and sometimes, very cute) teachers.

This is an extraordinary book that will leave you looking for more.

Reader reviewed by Sara

From back cover: Cammie Morgan is a student at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, a fairly typical all-girls school typical, that is, if every school taught advanced martial arts in PE and the latest in chemical warfare in science, and the students received extra credit for breaking CIA codes in computer class. The Gallagher Academy might claim to be a school for geniuses, but its really a school for spies.
Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man seven different ways with her bare hands, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks shes an ordinary girl. Sure, she can tap his phone, hack into his computer, or track him through town with the sill of a real pavement artist but can she maneuver a relationship with someone who can never know the truth about her?

Favorite characters, quotes/lines: Cammie: I thought she was really funny and spies are awesome!; Josh: totally worth sneaking out of Gallagher for!, Macey, Bex, and Liz: awesome partners in crime and friends&

When I finished this book I felt: I really liked it& it was an easy read, with lots of comedy, romance, and espionage!

Other books to read by this author: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

I would recommend this book to: Lovers of spies, romance, and teen fiction

I love Cammie. I think one of the reasons I like Cammie is because she's so much like me and I like it when I can relate to characters, you know what I mean?

I also really like Bex, I think she is so funny and she kick serious butt; they all do. Bex is easily one of my favorite characters of the series.

Next there's Liz, another one of my favorite characters. Liz is just so cute and also a little naive and clumsy, but she's still a very lovable character.

And then there's Macey. I really love Macey. In the beginning of the book Macey seems to come of as a jerk but as the story progresses she's really not; plus I read the books out of order so I knew ahead of time that Macey was awesome before reading this book.

I also like Josh. He's so sweet and kind of cool.

I really like the parts when Macey is telling Cammie, Bex and Liz what Josh's notes mean, and the part were Mr. Solomon was walking toward the girls and Cammie just puts Josh's note in her mouth until he leaves, I also love the parts when we meet Macey and Mr. Solomon for the first time, I also really like the part when Macey finds out it's a spy school, and the part when they made the Mission Impossible reference. A lot of good stuff in this book.

This book is like the best of both worlds it has the excitement of spies with a hint of romance. It's the ideal book for any teenage girl that doesn't love anything too mushy but still loves a cute forbidden boyfriend plot.

Cammie is a chameleon, she blends into the crowd without being noticed. This is the way she likes it since it's never good for a spy to be noticed. She's known all her life that her destiny was to become a spy like her parents and now she's out to prove it to everyone. Starting off at the elite all girls spy school that her mother runs makes this book exciting and will have you turning pages until the very end. The characters are all unique and really show the true meaning of sisterhood when Cammie gets into a bind. A great book to kick start an awesome series! I can't wait for the 5th book to be released to find out what happens next!