Black Friday is a fictional story set in modern day England that follows the story of a group of orphans who work as undercover spies for a covert organisation known as “Cherub”. Cherub is a organisation set up to recruit child orphans to be spies in situations where adults cannot be used. Cherub was set up because adults never suspect children to be spies. Black Friday follows main character Ryan Sharma whilst he completes a mission to stop what would potentially be America’s biggest terrorist attack. Even though the book is fictional and Cherub is a made up organization there is still a lot of things in which modern day teenagers can relate to as Ryan must do normal things in order to blend in with the crowd.

Main character Ryan Sharma is a character I found very interesting throughout the text Black Friday. Ryan is a 15 year old male who finds himself deep in a terrorist plot starting in Kyrgyzstan and ending in America. Over the course of the novel Ryan changes an awful lot as he grows from a young spy into one of Cherubs best ever. Ryan’s job is to uncover the terrorist plot and then stop it. Many traits Ryan holds are being adventurous, athletic, kind and caring. I feel like these traits of Ryan’s are very similar to my own so I understand a lot of the decisions he makes throughout the text. When Ryan is faced with a tough decision I believe that what he chooses to do is very similar to the choice I would make as I relate a lot to him. Ryan is someone who always believes in himself when others often don’t, however this sometimes causes stubbornness when he chooses to try something that has a very high chance of failure.

A message that I took from the text is that when you try and do something you always need to give your 100% effort for 100% of the time. This was shown greatly in the book because at times it seemed as if the task Ryan was trying to complete was going to be impossible but because he always believed in himself and gave 100% effort all the time he managed to pull through and save America. I believe that this message is really good for modern day teenagers because we can relate it into our everyday activities such as sport and school. This is a really good thing to use when playing rugby as if everyone can work their hardest for the whole 80 mins then we will put a good performance on the field and hopefully win. By portraying this in the text Robert Muchamore is really broadening his audience because it captivates many readers as it gives them something to relate to.

Challenges that Ryan had to deal with over the course of the book were very people related as well as the overall challenge of his mission. By being on a mission in an entirely different country Ryan has to deal with the stress of completing life threatening tasks whilst also being away from friends and caregivers. Teenagers need people to be close to in their lives so by being away with his mission controller being the only familiar face he has to grow up very lonely which means he has to overcome any personal obstacles by himself. Ontop of personal problems Ryan is regularly putting himself in danger by trying to complete his mission. These tasks often require extreme precision and skill so for a teenage boy to do day in day out this is a tough ask.

The title “Black Friday” is a really good title for this book. “Black Friday” is a good title because the end goal of the mission is to stop bombings from happening all over America on black friday. This means that the title holds great relevance to what is happening in the story so is very appropriate for the book.

In conclusion I think that “Black Friday” was a very good book and I really enjoyed reading it. I would recommend this book to boys my age as it has a lot of action and is a great book for people who don’t read an awful lot.