Elementary Book Reviews

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Michael Vey: Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans

Michael Vey is a freshman at a high school in Idaho. He is consistently bullied and singled out. Luckily, he has the power to stop it. During one of his daily poundings he shoots electricity from his hands and runs away from his attackers. He is not allowed to tell anyone of his talent, until a cheerleader sees that shock he gave his attackers that same day. She also is able to manipulate electricity through stopping the neuron connection in ones head and chooses not to tell people about it. After months of discussion they band together with Michael’s friend Ostin Liss (a computer expert) to find out how this happened to them.  Then, an unexpected turn of events happens. They begin to be hunted by someone or something. All of the clues they can discover lead to a snobbish private high school in Pasadena, California. This quest takes some spins and leads off into the next book in series.

Prisoner of Vault 25 is overall a simple read, not challenging and a basic concept. At times I felt as though certain chapters were designed for a movie instead of a book as no thoughts of the character were presented at all and it was just flashy action moves.  In summary, this is your mediocre Scooby-Doo style mystery that you can just blaze through in a rainy weekend.

3.25 Stars

Jacob Aubrecht

One Second After by William R. Forstchen

John Matherson is a military tactic analyzer that retired and chose to live a laid back life in the hills of North Carolina. He wanted only to live the rest of his life with his children and fellow townspeople. This is abruptly stopped when a power outage occurs.  However, this is no ordinary outage: everything electronic seemed to have short-circuited. All communication has disappeared and transportation is at a standstill. The deeper he looks into the situation, the more he is shockingly reminded of the effects of an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse).  Suddenly, neighboring towns turn hostile fighting for medicine and food, bullets become currency, and he tries to piece together the conspiracy that is happening before him.

One Second After may seem to be some crazy dooms-day book, but in reality it was modeled as a wake-up call to try and alert the public of world issues. The author himself has dedicated his studies to find “hidden apocalypses” that can destroy everyday life. John Matherson was designed to be an average man and his realization that civilization sits on a precariously on a ledge and an EMP can send it tumbling back to the Dark Ages. The best summary is one in the foreword by Newt Gingrich (Presidential Nominee) “Stock up on food and medicine as this horror can happen tomorrow.”

4.75 Stars

Jacob Aubrecht

A Web of Air by Philip Reeve

Set far in the future, the sequel to Fever Crumb brings us to when Fever is sixteen years old.  The highly rational Engineer is now working and living with a group of traveling performers.  When she arrives in the city of Mayda, she finds out that there is a man named Arlo Thursday working furiously to rediscover the lost secret of flight.  However, every person before him who dreamed of flight mysteriously died before they could real their goal.  Fever and Arlo race to finish a flying machine amongst deadly plots and skeptical religious fanatics.  There is only one thing they need to do: fly, when no one has left the ground for hundreds of years.

This book is slow to take off, but once it does, prepare for a wild ride.  Fever's cold and rational character and her background may come as a bit of a shock to those who haven't read the first book, but she is surprisingly relatable.  The plots takes unpredictable twists and turns, and no one that Fever meets can really be trusted.  Be prepared to become annoyed with several of the characters! A Web of Air is a great read for anyone, but be sure to read Fever Crumb first so as to understand the setting and Fever's background.

4 stars

So Yesterday by Scott Westerfield

Hunter Brauqe is the 17 year old you imagine in the streets on NYC: black tee-shirt, skinny jeans and a close cropped hair-line. However, there is more to him than just the average teen. He is involved in a extreme money-making underground operation known as "cool hunting". The concept is that they find people, known as Innovators, who break away from the mainstream of culture, develop new styles in language, clothing, hair, etc., and wear them (obviously). Hunter finds these people, reports them to his boss and then sells them to large corporations, who develop the next "cool" style. One day, Hunter finds his bosses phone in an abandoned building and goes on an insane quest to find out what exactly happened.

So Yesterday is a great novel. It provides this great writing sense in that you don't have all the pieces of the mystery until the end, making you continue to inhale the book as fast as you can. The plot is very new and is quite believable in almost all the parts. It moves very quickly and might inspire the hipster in you. There isn't much more to say than be new and find the "cool" in the world.

4.5 Stars

Jacob Aubrecht

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Theseus Cassio, known as Cas, is a ghost hunter.  He's not your run-of-the-mill Ghostbuster.  Rather, he kills spirits that have come back to wreak havoc on mortals.  Cas has been one of the world's only ghost hunters since his father's death, traveling around and slaying spirits.  When he hears about a ghost in  Canada known as Anna Dressed in Blood, who savagely kills runaway kids and homeless people who are unlucky enough to seek refuge in her house, Cas smells a challenge.  With the help of a teenage mind-reading witch and a prom queen, he tracks down Anna and prepares to send her back six feet under.  There's just one thing wrong: Anna knows what she's done, unlike countless other ghosts Cas has killed.  She has a conscious, and seems more human. For some reason, she can't bring herself to kill him.

This is a dark novel, that has just enough romance to accent the magic and mystery without overpowering it.  Anna and the other ghosts Cas encounters are not the friendly Casper variety, and will be sure to keep the reader up at night.  The style of writing hooks the reader in from the first page.  Prepare for a wild ride into Blake's brilliantly crafted supernatural world right to the shocking end

5 stars

The second book in the series, Girl of Nightmares, is due out August 7th, 2012.

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

In a long ago kingdom, Princess Rose and her eleven sisters have a secret.  A secret that leads to their dancing slippers being worn out night after night after night.  They've been forced to keep this secret for six years, unable to reassure their worrying father the king.  When the king offers his daughter's hand in marriage to whoever can discover their secret, not one prince can solve the puzzle.  A young war veteran, fresh from the war, befriends Rose and decides to try his hand at the task to save her.  The only tools he possesses are an invisibility cloak and some magic wool given to him by a witch.  He is determined to succeed, or die trying...

This was a brilliant retelling of the fairy tale "The Twelve Dancing Princesses."  Anyone who enjoyed the tale when they were younger will certainly appreciate this novel.  A bit darker than the original, some elements of medieval history are introduced, such as church members accusing people of witchcraft and the brutality of war.  If you haven't read the original fairy tale, check it out anyways.

5 stars