[Amelia]

Dear Gordon Korman

I am very new to your works having only read Restart and the Masterminds trilogy. I have adored the books I've read so far and I can't wait to read more. I have many thoughts on the Masterminds series so if you will respond, which I am not expecting since this will be very long, I would genuinely be over the moon about it. Not expecting anything, I am aware you are very busy. (also, to anyone else reading this, I'd also love responses)

Here are a few of my thoughts. I have a lot more than this, but the last one I tried was marked as spam.

 I thought that Eli would be my favorite character at first, but it ended up being Malik (only because we get like 6 chapters in total of Hector's POV)

I don't know how big to picture Serenity, but I imagine it to be smaller than a university campus.

I noticed that characters really don't have physical descriptions, the exceptions being hair and size. (I also noticed this in Restart and I wonder if that was intentional or not.) 

Despite Malik being my favorite character, I was wondering if it's pronounced Ma leek or Ma lick. The audiobook pronounces it like the former and I was quite embarrassed haha.

I love his character because I genuinely believe it was the first time I laughed at comedic parts in a book. I also love how his character is so sassy for lack of a better word. So soft while trying so hard to be tough on the outside. And for wanting to find something more than Serenity.

I wonder if Malik's constant talk of  'blowing the popsicle stand' that is Serenity is why they wanted to 'weed' him out. Not because he was bad, (even if he cheats, lies, and rebels whenever given the chance) but because his words about Serenity might affect the other kids causing them to see through Serenity.

I also liked how very technically, he was the first one to see something fishy about Serenity, and also who he genuinely wanted Eli to be careful when he heard what had happened to him. 

Thank you for your time - Amelia

Hi, Amelia,

Thanks for posting. I'm really pleased that you've started reading and enjoying my books. I appreciiate your comments on MASTERMINDS, which is a trilogy I'm kind of proud of.

You like Malik (that IS Ma-LEEK) best because he's very human. He's imperfect, temperamental, not always nice and cooperative, but a really good person at heart. But he's not the first one to know something is fishy about Serenity. That would be Randy, and Randy comunicates it to Eli first. Malik just finds the town cloyingly goody-goody.

I'm short on physical descriptions because I'm not very good at them. But MASTERMINDS was written back in 2014. I think I'm getting better at it. (I don't want to get VERY good because I always hated descriptions when I was a reader as a kid.)

Thanks again for your detailed letter, Amelia.                                              -----Gordon Korman-----

[Amelia]

I have so many more thoughts I'd like to share but for some reason they keep getting flagged as spam :(

 

[Amelia (the spam girl)]

Someone please help, I keep getting flagged as spam, I'm assuming that's because my messages are very long :(