Boy Nobody

Boy Nobody (2013), a young adult thriller by Allen Zadoff, is the first book in the Unknown Assassin trilogy. It follows a teenage assassin on a dangerous new mission against a target unlike any he’s faced before. The book received nominations for numerous awards including the 2016 Lincoln Award and the 2016 Missouri Gateway Readers Award. Boy Nobody is also known as I Am Weapon. Zadoff is a popular young adult writer whose works have been optioned for feature films. He also wrote a memoir about his weight loss journey aimed at adults.

The main character is a sixteen-year-old boy who is only ever known to the reader as “Boy Nobody.” He takes on different names depending on the circumstances, but this is his only constant identity. Taken away from his family as a young boy, he’s trained to become an assassin with a group called The Program.

This group is dedicated to killing enemies of the United States. He has a fake mother and father, who oversee his missions and coordinate his living arrangements as he moves across the country. His real parents are dead, and his only friend is an older boy called Mike. He doesn’t go to normal school because it’s important he maintains his cover and is always available for missions.



When we first meet Boy Nobody, he is killing Mr. Wu, who runs a technology firm. He stabs the man with a special pen that stops his heart. He makes it seem as though Mr. Wu has had an ordinary heart attack. He leaves behind his friend, Jack Wu, a young boy he had to befriend so he could get close to Mr. Wu. Boy Nobody is used to this—he will never have normal friends.

When he returns from his assignment, Boy Nobody receives word of his next mark—Jonathan Goldberg, the Mayor of New York. He only has five days to complete the mission, which worries him. He won’t have time to assimilate into the man’s life, learning his routine. It’s very risky and he doesn’t think he’s up to the task. His only hope is to quickly befriend the mayor’s daughter, Samara. However, he’s not used to making friends with girls.

His pretend parents aren’t interested in indulging his concerns. They tell him this is part of being an assassin, and he must use all the training he’s learned so far to complete the task. They remind him that Mr. Goldberg is a bad man and an enemy of the US. If he doesn’t complete his mission, the country is in danger.



Boy Nobody enrolls at a private school and soon meets Samara. She invites him to a party, and he agrees to go. Part of him regrets that he can’t have a normal life, and he won’t be able to enjoy the party. When he arrives at the event, he manages to infiltrate the mayor’s private residence, surveying his every move. He doesn’t think the mayor deserves to die, because he seems a genuine man. He walks away without killing him. He knows, though, that he’ll have to explain this to his superiors.

As the days drag on, Boy Nobody gets closer to Samara; he suspects there’s something his organization isn’t telling him. He doesn’t understand why The Program has selected the mayor for death, and it won’t tell him anything he doesn’t supposedly “need” to know. Not used to questioning anything, Boy Nobody is feeling all sorts of new emotions that he doesn’t understand.

Boy Nobody has been brought up to believe that the U.S. is the only good country and that all others are enemies. However, Samara makes him doubt everything he’s been trained to believe. He senses that he’s being followed and that The Program doesn’t trust him anymore. It suspects that he’s working with Samara to keep the mayor safe. Boy Nobody, meanwhile, simply hasn’t decided what side he’s on.



Matters get even more complicated for Boy Nobody once he learns more about Samara. She lost her mother tragically many years ago, and the mayor has never asked her about her feelings. She’s been recruited into a terrorist cell, and she plans on committing attacks against the U.S.—and her father. For the first time, Boy Nobody must face another young person who is part of a murderous organization with its own agenda.

Worse, Boy Nobody knows Samara can’t survive if he’s to fulfill his overarching mission of keeping the U.S. safe from enemies. Her father has never been the real target—Samara’s cell is. When the cell bombs the mayor’s house, Boy Nobody gets the mayor out safely. He must face Samara and make a choice—kill or be killed. He is much stronger than her, and he overpowers her. She asks him to give her a clean death, and he promises that he will. He kills her with the same type of injection he used on Mr. Wu.

Boy Nobody doesn’t know who to trust now, because the Program wasn’t entirely honest with him. He must make a choice as to where he goes from here, which is covered in the rest of the trilogy.