Shooting Stars by Leslie Hodgson
****
Shooting Stars was a pleasant surprise. I found the creativity behind the story to be a wonderful change from the more common selection of supernatural beings and creatures in some of the YA/MG literature I've read.
As the title suggests, this is an exciting adventure that takes place in the stars. It begins with Stella, a teenage girl, awakening at the scene of a car crash involving her parents and brother. She is confused an doesn't know what is going on. At first I thought that the story would be told from this girl's point of view, but as the story progresses, the reader is treated to different perspectives from several different characters. That too was a nice change from a lot of my recent reading material.
The idea that Stella and Isaac (the main characters) aren't your average teens raised in moderate seclusion on a mountaintop but are really descendants from humans with extraordinary abilities doesn't seem that original at first. That is until the reader discovers just what those abilities are and where in the universe they come from. One of those abilities was delightful to read about. After all, who wouldn't want want to be able to travel through space in a stream of atoms that looks just like a shooting star?
It really was an exciting tale and I can see it appealing to many middle graders and their parents. It has a good story, an evil tyrant with his minions, and constellation creatures. What more can the reader ask for? The main characters, Stella and Isaac, were quite innocent for teens but that makes sense within the framework of the story. In fact I thought it was refreshing. I strongly recommend it.
AMAZON LINK:
Shooting Stars
*****
I had better start with stating that I'm giving it five stars right away. It was quite a suspense filled Sci-Fi YA Adventure. I can see it becoming a bestseller very quickly. I hope it does.
In The Annihilation of Foreverland, the author has created a very scary alternative reality scenario that hints at plausibility in the future. He combines it with a fast pace and plenty of action. In fact, it reminded me of those dystopian teen worlds spawned by the minds of James Dashner and Neal Shusterman - although the author Tony Bertauski clearly has his own style. (Plus he stuck his characters on a luxury tropical island. Go figure.)
That said, this one really threw me for a loop when I started it. The beginning reads like every parent's worst nightmare. Thirteen year old Danny Boy wakes up in hospital-like room with an old man at his side. He doesn't know the old man and has no memories of his own. He discovers he's on an island populated by boys and old men. The boys belong to 'camps' that compete with each other and gain privileges by winning computer games (essentially). It's more than a bit creepy. I will admit I was worried at first, but as other characters show up (I'm not including the old men) and different points of view are introduced the readers gets carried away by the story.
I really enjoyed the author's focus on the plot and action. It should appeal to 'guy' readers without being just a 'guy's' read.
The story is well thought out and without giving too much away - there were a couple of nice surprises that happened to some of the characters. It was a pleasant change from the relentless stream of nasty that happens in some of these Sci-Fi stories.
Technically, I would rate it just shy of five stars because there were a few editorial slip ups that I found a little irksome - but not enough to really take away from the story. It happens in e-books sometimes.
Highly recommended.
My rating ****
Amazon Link
I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed the book. The descriptive blurb is very accurate. I Am Become Death really is very Anime/Manga inspired even though it's a novel. The similarity between the two jumped out at me immediately because not only are my children YA readers, but they're fans of Anime (and one of them a Manga fan too), so I've become familiar with it myself.
In the story the protagonists Chikara, Renka and Gen, as well as the antagonists Michiko, Yukiko, Kaijin(and later ones) really did remind me of Anime characters. Of course this is only a slight comparison because the characters were more developed in the novel. But the similarities to Japanese animation didn't end there. Just as a reader familiar with Anime would expect, there are plenty of spontaneous sparring events throughout the story, a budding romance between the shy girl and the good looking boy, dark secrets held by many characters, supernatural powers tied in with different religious beliefs and even a few surprises from the past just kind of thrown at you. But as a reader, I have to say it all worked together quite well. The action scenes were very exciting and there was a good deal of suspense injected to keep me reading.
I should also mention that the author did present a fair bit of information about Japanese culture and history in the story as well as different political points of view. I thought it was handled well but I can see how some of those passages might drag a bit for some readers (but definitely not all). However, it's still a great first book in the series. I look forward to the next one.
