Rating: 2 stars
Cover synopsis: When the hunt for the 39 Clues leads Amy and Dan to Japan, their only chance to find the third Clue seems to lie with their unreliable uncle, Alistair Oh. Will they be foolish enough to make an alliance? In the Cahill family, trusting your relatives can get you killed...
This was the weakest 39 Clues book so far. I don't know if it was just because I'm not terribly interested in Japanese history, but I had a hard time following this one. The action sequences left me baffled, and I found myself having to re-read what should have been key passages, wondering why it wasn't sinking in. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mindframe when I read it...Or maybe I'm just spoiled from reading so much Harry Potter lately, I'm setting the bar unusually high.
But, oh, then there are the plot lines. Why, all of a sudden, are Amy and Dan relying on relatives that tried to kill them? The reasoning didn't make a whole lot of sense. And the coolest part -- the Yakuza -- were not played up enough. And don't even get me started on the weak attempt at a love interest. Gag me. Awful.
I'm not giving up on the series yet -- a different author writes each book, so this is no indication of the other books' quality. And although I finished the book in a couple hours, I felt like I wasted my time.
