A Girl Named Digit

Monaghan, Annabel. A Girl Named Digit.
5 June 2012

Farrah (aka "Digit") is a math whiz at almost 18. This makes a fair amount of sense; her math professor father has encouraged her abilities, while her actress mother is more concerned about what she is wearing. When Digit uncovers a code scrolling across the screen during one of her favorite programs, and later connects this code with a bombing of a luxury plane at the JFK airport, she and her father go to the authorities... who think they are nuts. Digit tracks down the man she thinks might be responsible and connected to the Jonas Furnis ecoterrorism group, and almost gets killed. The FBI steps in and stages her kidnapping in order to keep her safe. She is put under the care of John, an agent on his first assignment who is not much older than she is. The two go through transcripts and think they have a clue, so jet off to New York, where they find out they are in danger from a double agent. Using their combined linguistic and math abilities, the two figure out how to best take down this agent, as well as the ecoterrorists. Digit is pleased that she has finally found romance, but will a successful mission mean that she will lose John?
Strengths: The perfect book for fans of Ally Carter's I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You series. There's spying, travel, the posh life, and a hot FBI agent who is not quite 4 months older than Digit. The romance is chaste and circumspect, but fun. This may be a series, and I'm glad! There's a lot of math and clues, which I normally don't like, but I really enjoyed this whole book.
Weaknesses: Tiny print even though it's a very thin book. I'd love to know if there is some kind of industry standard for print size. Middle grade gets 14, but YA gets 10. Frustrating, since middle school students are very sensitive to this and hate tiny print. (As are middle aged librarians with quickly fading reading abilities!)