Overall this book was fun and easy to read. Confessions of a Dangerous Girl feels like everything I would have wanted to read in middle school. Being 21 now it felt a little bit out of my age range but I would absolutely recommend it to anyone younger than me who wants a fun book to read about spies and literal psychopaths

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an eARC of this title.

I absolutely loved this book & finished it in a day. I just could not put it down.

Emma Garthright (16) has been living in a boarding school for psychopaths since she was 6. Her
parents believe the school is teaching the kids how to function in the real world. What they don't know is that it is also a secret CIA training sight for teenage assassins.
Emma has now been assigned a mission - go home, live with her family, attend a regular high school and make the Model UN team so she can travel with them to their competition in NYC.
However- Tryouts don’t go as planned and she ends up as an alternate (alternates don’t travel)
Now she has to figure out how to make friends with the team's captain (and somehow eliminate one team member) so she can be moved from alternate to team member and complete her mission.
But what happens when the girl with no conscience learns to care about those around her?

This one has lots of action, drama, and plenty of laughs. I know my students will enjoy it.

There is some language & allusions to sex, but no details.

Firstly i'd like to thank Netgalley for for providing me a copy of this book, now onto the review!
This book follows Emma who lives in a institute for special children aka psycopaths, from which the CIA picks the teens they think would make good agents, which is how Emma ends up going undercover in highschool!
This book had the perfect balance between highschool drama and spionage (or whatever you wanna call what she does), I found it really interesting to see how in theory her lack of conscience would make her a great agent, although I also can see the downsides, and how differently she sees the world and people around her due to her condition.
Overall it was a very enjoyable, fast and light read, as the more intense moments are often "cut" with Emma's wit and humor.

I have seen a bunch of movies like this, but never a book! The author transported me into the mind of the psychopath teen, which I think was cool, and make me fell her emotions. The MC changed a lot throughout the book, if you’re looking for character development, this book is for you. Loved the friendships, they were sweet and kind. 4 out of 5.

I had never read a story from this type of point of view and it did not disappoint!

It was intriguing to be inside the mind of someone who has to kill others and tried to kill from a young age, and watch their conscious grow to realise maybe it’s not the type of person they want to be.

The growing friendships were heartwarming to read and watching someone who never had a normal life, trying there best to fit in, is so interesting to see how they attempt to figure out what “normal” is

Would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a fun, fast paced read

This book was very fun to say the least. It had excellent pacing, great character development, witty humor, and good action scenes. I couldn't ask for anything better.

✰ 3.5 stars! ✰
The concept was interesting and I thought this was overall a fun read! It's been a while since I've read a book with a spy plot, so that and the lack of romance was refreshing. I also enjoyed the character interactions. However, I feel that the term "psychopath" might have been used rather loosely in the book, and there were some moments where Emma did things that I'm sure the Institution would have taught her not to do when completing a mission. These things kind of threw me off while reading.
I recommend this book to YA readers who want to read a quick, light spy story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a pretty good book! I actually liked the absence of romance in this book. It really allowed us readers to really look at the characters as who they were. The writing was decent and I definitely think preteens would enjoy this book. It was fun and easy to read!

I enjoyed this one - I feel like in a world overly saturated with fantasy and romantasy books this one stood out and a spy/thriller with a strong female protagonist. I did struggle with the term "psychopath" being thrown around so much when really I felt like Emma read more as sociopath - she really just doesn't care that her actions may affect, and potentially hurt, the people around her. I'm not a therapist though so what do I know.

Think you're at a school being trained to work for the CIA....think again! Overall this was a really fun ride. The character even though a "psychopath" was likeable enough to keep the story moving without sinking into the usual tropes. I finished the book rather quickly because the pace of the story is quick and a lot of fun.

This is the kind of book you pick up as a quick palate cleanser between heavier fiction or when you are looking for something fun to read by the pool or on the beach. I would recommend it to anyone who likes YA fiction and/or light mysteries. After reading this I will look forward to reading more books by this author or even looking for additional books about our teenage assassins'!

Okay, I had some issues with this book. It wasn't quite what I expected. Too much high school, not enough spy stuff. And the main character was hard to get used to. Not because she's a literal psychopath but because she thinks she's a lot smarter than she actually is. The Model UN audition? You don't need feelings to figure that one out, it was so dumb of her, I almost stopped reading right there. It did improve towards the end, but the first half...

All I can say is I want more stories with Emma! This would make a great TV series. From the beginning I was engrossed and did not want to put the book down. I feel that this book was amazing and there is so much more that could come from Emma and the other characters if this is turned into a series.

I wanted to love this book so much. The synopsis gave me such high hopes but it was a let down. The term psychopath was used incredibly loosely and felt more like a term to excuse her awful behavior.

This book was so much fun. I know I'm not really the target audience anymore as this is the younger end of YA, but I would have been SO obsessed with it as a preteen so I had to honour my younger self and read it.

The premise of a school for psychopaths to be trained into CIA assassins was all I needed to pick it up. The writing style and pacing of the plot made it super easy to read this book in one or two sittings, and it was full of humour, action, found family, and a surprising amount of geopolitics. At the beginning I felt like some of Emma's thoughts were too repetitive, but this improved after the first few chapters and honestly I forgot all about that until I read my little review notes!

I was pleasantly surprised to see that besides mentioning Emma's ex, and other characters having romances, we didn't really have a romance plot for the MC. For YA this was SO refreshing and left more room for the character development, both for Emma and the others!

The ending was wrapped up well, with pretty much everything I could ask for getting ticked off, but that being said I could see this easily becoming a whole series

Overall, the “Confessions of a dangerous girl” was a good book, a tad predictable, but it was well written and was a pleasure to read. The “Confessions of a dangerous Girl” is a story that revolves around Emma, a teenage psychopath who is trained by the CIA, During her newest mission, she meets friends both new and old. Emma's story is powerful as it deals with challenges faced in spite of her differences and highlights how people can change with the support of others. Other than the predictability of the final big bad, I overall enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to teens and young adults.

While this book was clinically imprecise, it provided a somewhat unique approach to providing the protagonist a frame in which it was important for her to grow as a result of the story.
The character/psychological growth of the character was therefore more useful in articulating a message in which readers with personality disorders can use (contrary to other books such as I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest, it is a message concomitant with the therapeutic purpose of child psychiatry).

While Chekov's gun was repeatedly fired, and the narrative structure clear, individual discrete fabula elements did not distract from the storytelling.
For a teen/young adult book the sexual elements were rendered purposefully ambiguous (always one word short of an action), which was a unique take that may leave "shipping fans" wanting more.
Ultimately, the worldbuilding that produced a message of empathy and social-emotional strength from others was not distracted by the children/protagonists solving all problems.
This is particularly important for books selected as therapeutic, as it offers a means to solidify the patient-therapist relationship.

As school-based spy fiction I would compare this book favourably to the Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter, and for a more robust look at female psychopathy A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G Summers. While the latter offers a different approach to both narration and sensuality, the theme of self-understanding through connections with others is consistent with this book.

There are just so many good things I could say about this book. I absolutely tore (pun intended) through this read . Everyone needs to go read it

A very easy read and enjoyable. A book about a girl who goes somewhat undercover in a mission and ends up getting betrayed. Worth a read!

Confessions of a Dangerous Girl follows Emma Garthright, a girl who was diagnosed as a psychopath at age 6 and has been enrolled at the Early Institute ever since. The catch? The Early Institute is a cover for an elite group of teenage assassins that work for the CIA. Emma gets recruited for a role near her hometown, where she has to infiltrate regular high school. What could go wrong?
There were some good parts! Some of the moments of Emma, Susie, Maeve, and Brayden were very cute and I could see the threads of them slowly becoming a found family. There were also a few action scenes that were well paced.

Unfortunately, this book was a major miss for me from the introduction. Emma has a habit of speaking to the reader, which is quite juvenile and strange. As a reader, I don't want to be spoken to by the characters. Especially if I'm in their head. It feels like the fourth wall is being shattered with no real purpose (to make a joke or make commentary).
The introduction was clunky, with lots of info dumps (which occur throughout the book). I don't need the character to tell me what she looks like, there are more organic ways to introduce a character.
Speaking of Emma, she's not smart. Like at all. She literally looked up her assassination target on her COMPUTER. THAT'S HOW YOU GET CAUGHT. That should've been covered at the Institute at the very least. Homegirl also didn't know who Grover Cleveland is, but did know Edgar Allen Poe?? It felt like "cool kids don't know presidents lol". There were also info dumps on what she's learning about. I don't care about that. I'd rather see her developments with other characters--there's a distinct lack of that due to random time skips. She has some nice character development through learning to care about others and the describing of psychopathy as a spectrum at the end was very well done (to help break the stigma of psychopathy), but overall she's hard to root for and quite flat if one looks beyond her "I'm a psychopath teenage assassin" front since her only other personality trait is "I like shoes". (which also, stereotypical much?)
Also, the reader does not need every single thing explained to them. If the reader is really curious about the Minotaur, they will look it up. Describing the key to the cypher is enough. Over-explanations like these makes the reader feel like the author thinks they're stupid and need everything spoon-fed to them.

Now let's talk about the phrase "able-conscienced." For reference, I'm disabled (and Emma can be considered disabled because of her personality disorder. There's also a lot that can be said about how we classify disability but that is a conversation for another time). Able-bodied is a term used to refer non-disabled people and make able-bodied people aware of their privilege. Emma's appropriation and changing of the term was done in poor taste, in my opinion. It felt like it was done for a cheap joke and to show "look how manipulative she is" but it missed the mark and was lowkey offensive.

Furthermore, the made up group of African tribes/country was also problematic. The Black African immigrants were drug dealers? Really? It's not like Black immigrants (and Americans, to be fair) are stereotyped as drug dealers/violent criminals, right? (please note the sarcasm). This played into harmful stereotypes and attempted to play it off through a made up nation and made up peoples. And of course, the white girl comes to save the day and help them start a new life. White savior complex? Checked.

On a less serious note, there was no need to censor cursing. Either put the full word in, or say they cursed. Seeing the "f-word" written like "f---" makes it seem like the person who said it either made a "f" sound or said "eff". The censoring was unnecessary and distracting.

Overall a disappointing, yikes-worthy read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me an e-arc in exchange for my honest review!:)

I simply can't believe this is Dan Birk's first book! The story revolves around Emma, a girl who has been trained at an Early Institute by the CIA to become a deadly assassin. She has spent most of her life at this institution due to being diagnosed as a psychopath. She seems to enjoy the Institute. Despite being sent home on an assignment to act like a normal student and get in good graces with Susie Robinson, the teacher's pet and all-around good girl, she has ulterior motives as well. I enjoyed the action-packed scenes as the plot unfolded. Aside from being funny, blunt, and self-aware, Emma is also socially awkward. I loved reading this quick YA book and would highly recommend it.