Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Yee

Millicent Min, Girl Genius
by Lisa Yee

     Synopsis (from Scholastic): Millicent Min is having a bad summer. Her fellow high school students hate her for setting the curve. Her fellow 11-year-olds hate her for going to high school. And her mother has arranged for her to tutor Stanford Wong, the poster boy for Chinese geekdom. But then Millie meets Emily. Emily doesn’t know Millicent’s IQ score. She actually thinks Millie is cool. And if Millie can hide her awards, ignore her grandmother’s advice, swear her parents to silence, blackmail Stanford, and keep all her lies straight, she just might make her first friend. What’s it going to take? Sheer genius.

     My Review: Millicent Min is a really fun character to share perspectives with, since she's a total genius. The book starts out with her telling the readers about a joke she's going to write on people's yearbooks in Latin, which gives you a scope of who you're dealing with here. 

     But seriously, Millicent is only 11, and really does want friends, and tries hard to make them. Emily is a really good friend to Millicent, so it's obvious why Millicent wants to be her friend. I still don't understand how Millicent thought hiding her IQ would be beneficial, though, because I think she should trust Emily enough to tell her she actually does go to high school. Stanford is fine, and he has his own retelling of the story in the sequel, Stanford Wong Flunk Big-Time. Millicent's parents are really nice and not too corny or anything (I hate it when authors make the protagonist against their parents, so luckily there was no such problem in this book), and so is her grandmother. The book is really funny because of how Millicent tries to over-interpret some situations and how she acts and talks (big words, in essence), and also because of her volleyball experiences. It's also sad at a couple of parts because all she wants is a friend, and even that's hard to get. Still, her report card (given in the book) and academic reports are very impressive, and it really puts being a genius into perspective. 

     Overall, I'd give this book 4.5 stars. It's a perfect read for MG readers who think being genius must be easy. Want the whole series? Check out the covers below!