"Out of Sight, Out of Time" by Ally Carter

**Spoilers!!**

Out of Sight, Out of Time, by Ally Carter, is the fifth book in the Gallagher Girls book series. In the last book, Cammie made her decision to leave Gallagher Academy, in hopes to find answers to why the secretive Circle of Cavan wants her, and to protect those around her. The book begins with Cammie waking up in a nunnery in the Alps with no memory of her summer, and her whole appearance changed. Cammie has to figure out what she found out over the summer to lead her there, and how to get back to her home and her old self.

Okay, as I said in the last post, GIRLY BOOK! However, though with a jokey premise and general characterizations for each character (the smart one, the tough/sexy one, the invisible one, the fashionable one), these books continue to amaze and impress me.

The best part of this book was Cammie's character development. She goes through the stage that every character in a series, in my opinion, goes through, her break. After years of being comfortable with herself and her position, she continues to leave her "invisible" shell that she started to exit in the last book, and has to reassure herself. The confirmed loss of her father, her memory loss, and the attitude towards her from her friends all shake Cammie really deeply. She has to reestablish herself as a character. Breaks like this happen in the end of the Hunger Games, Twilight, Percy Jackson, Lord of the Rings, and all other strong series that have been very popular. This gives the reader a refreshing take on the character and doesn't bore them with the same thing in every book.

Cammie's development in this book also has to do with identity and finding herself, as the last book did. Her memory loss makes her lose the idea of who she is, mostly because of the things she doesn't know she did. She ends up knowing how to assemble a rifle, having torture scars, and just being a more emotionally fragile person. The affect this has on her friends and her general sanity makes her have to start from scratch again with her personality. The death of her father also makes her reassess her life. She was content with just not knowing where her father was and assuming he was dead, but not wanting to confirm it. The change in her lifestyle made her break further. The affect it had on her sanity and her friends was really intense and interesting to read.

The more mature and dark content of this book also makes me very happy with this series. Percy Jackson, another book made for kids (also published by Disney-Hyperion), starts out very kid-like, but matures as the series and characters do. You think that Carter would have dealt with this sooner, but death is large part of the books, due to the situation with Cam's father, and in spies life. Cammie kills men, loses friends, almost commits suicide (though through hypnotism), loses herself and deals with her dad's death in this book.

Of course, there are  aspects of the series that will be silly and unrealistic, and there will always be. I cannot stress enough that this is a book for tweenage girls. But by far, this book impressed me the most in the series so far. The action and pacing stay AMAZING, and the characters still hold their intensity and snarky-ness, with believable with problems and reactions that you can relate to. Five Stars!