Quickie Review:
Standard
teen with special powers attends a school for the gifted, accompanied by his
Australian guardian angel. Some evil ancient force composed of agencies,
teenagers and monsters pursues him. It’s worth a read, and may surprise you. I
would put it on my bookshelf.
Full Length Review:
Plot:
Will West’s family moves around every
few years for no explanation. He has no close friends, so he spends his time
running cross-country. When men called the Black Hats begin to pursue him, Will
follows his dad’s 98 rules to survive. Once he learns that he has been accepted
to an academy for the gifted, Will goes home only to find out his mom has
become a zombie! Well, no. The Black Hats planted a mind control bug in her
neck. After his father warns him to run, Will enrolls in the special school and
flies off to safety.
The bulk of this book is Will
gaining friends and unraveling the mystery behind who is after him. The plot
fell apart for me though, somewhere around the part where Will abandons his
family and uses Nando, a random taxi driver he just met to do reconnaissance on
the bad guys. There is way too much going on, that the story was lost to all
the cool features the author was trying to shove in.
2/5
Characters:
Will manages to meet a handful of
wonderful characters that all get broad descriptions, but none particularly
stand out, except Dave. However, most, including Will, don’t feel like fully
realized ideas. Among Will’s friends, there is the brainy one, the
slang-slinging gymnast, a piano player with fierce eyes, and a blonde love
interest. While these may be new twists on past stereotypes, none defy
expectations. They did make my laugh on occasion, though. The villain(s) had
some interesting backstory, and some historical significance, but never
displayed any awesome factors.
3/5
Setting/Description:
The book starts of in Ojai,
California and moves Will off to The Center for Integrated Learning, a high
school in Wisconsin. The Center is a high school for gifted students and
recruits all students by merit. It houses a little over 1,000 students by
Will’s calculations, yet boasts an entire shopping mall. It sounds too good to
be true, or believable at all in our reality. I do enjoy the descriptions of
snow though and I would make a pilgrimage to Popski’s any day of the week.
As for description, the book starts
of with whole chapters dedicated to describing either people or areas. Some of
the descriptions can even entice envy, such as the description for a hot rod
and Will’s first Wisconsin breakfast. Yet, some of the time spent on describing
minor things in great detail, could have gone to better use. Still, the writing
never loses track and the words flow.
4/5
Writing Style:
This book is written in 3rd
person limited, past tense for the most part. However, at some points in time,
the writing head hops mid-paragraph and the POV changes. The author enjoys
lengthy descriptions, and characters so packed with personality they are
borderline racist. Maybe it was the Mexican cab driver who can never form a
grammatically correct sentence, or the Australian soldier who exclusively
speaks in an Australian dialect like he never left. The pacing was slow at
times, but picked up near the last 1/3 of the book, which was around 350 pages
into this 560-page monster.
3/5
Potential:
This book already has a sequel due
out in a few months. I think the author can carry the story through to a
trilogy. With most of the description out of the way, I feel like the plot can
get to maximum potential if the Mark Frost looks over mistakes from the first.
This was also Frost’s first YA book, which was able to capture the teenage
voice surprisingly well for a man bordering on 60. His background in scriptwriting has given him to write the
screenplay for the upcoming movie, which will definitely give this book some
hype.
5/5
Final:
Plot 2/5
Characters 3/5
Setting/Description 4/5
Writing Style 3/5
Potential 5/5
Score 3.4/5
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