Book Review
Title: Going Wild by Brittany Geragotelis (The Infamous Frankie Lorde Book 2)
Genre: Middle Grade, Drama, Family
Rating: 5 Stars
After the ending of Stealing Greenwich I think these books are going to be a self-contained story with possibly some overlapping story arcs but I couldn’t wait to get into Going Wild. The opening to Going Wild sets up the heist for this book which is going to focus around exotic animals which is a theme from the first book. Frankie and Ollie are volunteering over the winter break at an animal shelter called The Farm run by Kayla and one day a boa constrictor is brought in which is an animal not native to that part of America and could have only been brought in through illegal smuggling. Kayla also lets slip that when Miles was arrested they found a tiger on his property which was turned over to a big cat reserve not far away. We can see the wheels turning in Frankie’s mind when Kayla tells them that she believes that the people smuggling in the animals also live in the area as it would make sense for them to receive the animals and sell them off to rich people living in Greenwich.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, we don’t get much more on the heist as we turn to focus on Frankie’s relationship with her father as she is going to visit him in prison for the first time since he has been moved to a closer facility. Frankie is understandably nervous but she did send her father her journal from the first book so he knows everything she has been up to and she can’t wait to talk to him about it as she is obviously proud of the first heist she pulled off entirely by herself without him there to help her. However, she is devastated when her father tells her that he wants her to be normal and live a normal life which is something Frankie feels incapable of doing since she has been doing this from the age of eight and been training since she was five. To Frankie her entire identity is wrapped up in being a thief like her father and without there she doesn’t feel she has an identity so she feels betrayed by her dad and ends up storming out of the visit in tears. We can obvious see both sides of this argument but we also see that Frankie deliberately hasn’t been trying to make more friends or settle in Greenwich because she has always believe that her dad would break out of prison and they would go back to living their former life but that doesn’t seem to be an option now and I don’t know how Frankie is going to cope with this.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, we see Frankie once again in her element with Ollie as she uses him as a distraction with her uncle in order to get information about Miles’ arrest. She learns in a statement when he was asked about the tiger he claimed he got it from Sam Brasko. Ollie ends up informing Frankie that the Brasko twins, Sam and Emma are huge in the animal community since a huge portion of their house and image in devoted to their dogs which doesn’t correlate with animal smuggling. When Frankie and Ollie go undercover to interview the twins they learn that the twins are devoted to their pets and love animals but they do act shifty when Miles is mentioned. While the twins don’t fit the traditional image of animal smugglers because of their love for animals, they are power hungry and want to be famous but being out of the spotlight for a long time means they need a comeback plus they have all the right connection to sell these animals to people who are just as rich as they are. They are also do more digging into the illegal animal trade and find out that it isn’t necessarily illegal in most place but you do need certain licenses or permits to own these animals. Frankie and Ollie are both stunned to learn that tiger cubs can be purchased for less than certain breeds of dogs because it is that easy to get and smuggle these animals into America and it makes Frankie more determined to stop the person or people responsible.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, we are getting snippets of where the heist is going but it follows the same pattern as the first book where we focus more on the characters in the first half and the heist in the second half which I don’t mind at all since the characters are enjoyable to follow. We get more on Frankie’s state on mind in this book as she is struggling to cope with the fact her father is in prison and their old life has vanished, she has also been deliberately stopping herself from feeling that Greenwich and Scott place are home for her because she wants to return to her former life but she also doesn’t want to leave Scott and Ollie behind again. When she is contacted by a friend of her father’s, Angus she voices these thoughts for the first time to him and he offers to let her stay with him where she will have more of her former life and be able to rid herself of the trapped feeling she has been having lately. She also confesses to Ollie while they are researching the tiger trade by visiting a big cat rescue that she feels she can’t entirely be herself since she knows people are going to look down on her or think less of her for being who she really is and he seems to understand this but it doesn’t stop him being disappointed and upset that his friend might be leaving him behind in a few short weeks when Angus stops by on the way to a job in Canada. Honestly, getting inside the character’s heads the way we are in this series was outstanding especially for middle grade which is intended for a younger audience but it deals with these topics in a way that is really easy to understand and it actually incorporates a lot of true facts into them like there are more tigers kept as pets in the US than there are in the wild which is mind-blowing.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, Frankie and Ollie are dividing their attentions all over the place as they continue with their volunteering work and interviewing the twins in order to find out more about the exotic animal smuggling. However, we do get a really tender scene between Ollie and Frankie and he takes her to his home for the first time and she realises his family is rich but not in the way she expected. Frankie learns that Ollie’s family weren’t always rich but rather they won the lottery which they used to buy the house that houses his family, his grandparents and his aunt and uncle in a guesthouse. However, unlike the rich people they are busting his family don’t have maid and servants and they continue to look after things themselves as his mother cleans the entire house herself and his father takes care of the community park he set up and he wants Frankie to know that he feels as trapped as she does and if she is determined on leaving with Angus then he will be going with her. This moment was really touching and really solidified the friendship between this pair and honestly I wouldn’t mind this ending up as a romance between the pair but I am almost 100% sure that Ollie is gay even though he hasn’t come out and said it.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, Frankie and Ollie are beginning to give up hope of finding the animals in the twin’s house or on the ground and Frankie begins doubting herself when they literally stumble onto the enclosures on the outskirts of the twin’s land and meet the even creepier Captain Bob who takes care of them. Obviously Bob reports this back to the twins and Frankie ends up being cornered by Emma in order to determine whether she is friend or foe. A lesser person might have panicked but Frankie is very good at thinking on her feet and manages to convince the twins that she is in the same business and wants to help them expand their operation which they are grateful for. Due to this new partnership Emma shows her where they keep the cubs and the animals that need the climate control like the snakes and the security around them is basic, so much so Frankie could easily get through it the only problem is the safe itself is guarded by a 12 foot long anaconda which is going to be a problem. Armed with this new information and an invitation to a dinner with potential buyers Frankie has everything she needs to bring the twins down all she needs to do is work out how to get past the snake to rob them but the real question she has is how is going to help the animals when many of them are too dangerous for her to get remotely close to let alone release as they will most likely be killed by the police. I think Frankie is going to have to drop tips to shelters and activists or something similar to deal with the animals but this isn’t going to be easy for her.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, we get to see the conclusion of this heist and it was honestly stunning and I loved it more than the first book. Unlike the first heist which went pretty smoothly there are several hiccups in seeing this one through mainly because of the dangerous animals involved but they manage it in the end with some help from Angus and the not so creepy Captain Bob. Angus does end up commenting on how Frankie is becoming a thief her mother would be proud of since she has chosen her own path and it is one that helps people which really helps Frankie sort out her emotions. That end scene between Frankie and her Uncle Scotty hit me so hard that I literally teared up as they begin properly bonding for the first time since Frankie was sent to live with him and they begin seeming like family and being making a home together starting with adopting a cat since Scott has never had a pet thinking he couldn’t be responsible for anyone other than himself and Frankie has never stayed in one place long enough to own a pet. Overall, I am really coming to love this series and I don’t want it to end but I can’t wait to see what Frankie and Ollie get up to in No Admissions so I am jumping in straight away.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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