Actual rating: 3 stars, maybe 2.5 stars for the oddly brief, matter-of-fact death scene of a character that then goes almost entirely unmourned or unremarked upon, even though there were about 40 pages left. This is not a series with a strong character focus, but I have never been less moved by a death before. And here she was just developing a (very tame) romance with sort-of main character, Otto, too, so it's even weirder.

This is a plotty, action-heavy series, perfect for young readers who like lengthy battle scenes and cool technological gadgets, and it still has its moments (mostly when the young characters of the H.I.V.E. school get to be in the spotlight, something sadly lacking in the latest books) but I have grown less enchanted with it within the last two books. The disconnect between the fact that the main characters are all supposed to be super-villains or villains-in-training and the fact that they act like heroes bent on stopping the real villains grows harder to ignore with every book. Still, the real villains are deliciously megalomanical in the best, Dr. Evil, way and their crazy complex plans are a highlight of this series. This one was better than Book Five, but I can't help feeling that this series started out as a fun parody of the superhero genre and slowly grew away from that and become too straightforward and serious. ( )