Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Michael Vey, The prisoner of cell 25


Michael Vey isn't as normal as he seems. Yes, he does go to middle school, get beat up, and eat pizza. But all similarities stop their. For one thing, his father died when he was young. For another, he lives in Idaho. He even has Tourette's syndrome. A disease that can cause rapid blinking and gulping noises when the person is anxious. Most different of all though is that's Michael has a very special ability. This is that he can electrically shock someone through his fingers... scary right? He thinks that he is completely unique in this way, until he meets a girl named Taylor Ridley who can mess with people's minds through electric signals. All together, he, Taylor, and Michael's smart friend Ostin find out why they have their special powers. They discover that there are more than one of the electric power "children". In the discovery of these answers they are found by an organization called Elgen Academy that convinces these children to use their powers for evil purposes. The problem is, they are extremely convincing. They must use teamwork, cunning, love, and creativity to resist and defeat the Academy.

Did you ever think that you would ever see a good book that is set in Idaho? I sure didn't, but I have found one, and it was good. Richard Paul Evans (the author) sure has done a great job on this science-fiction book based in real life. He made it extremely entertaining, interesting, and even a little instructive. He did this through his amazingly detailed action scenes and by describing the world around the characters in a very realistic way.

First, this book is entertaining because the action scenes in this book are very well portrayed. Especially since a lot of the fighting has to do with mass amounts of electricity. Next, this book is interesting because the author was extremely creative in designing the children's electrical powers. It even sounds a mostly logical in the explanation of how they got their powers. Finally, this book is instructive because it teaches lessons about discrimination in social cliques. He does this by going through Michael's life at school and by going in detail how unpopular he is.

One of the opinions that the author presents is that through teamwork, you will always do better. I agree with this opinion because Michael and his friends accomplish many things through teamwork. Like winning impossible fights, outsmarting opponents, and even traveling great distances. Teamwork is like the cheat to accomplishing difficult tasks. Yes, tasks can be accomplished alone, but that isn't always possible. And when it is possible, it will always be way less work and much easier with a team. Would professional sports players make money if all they did was be ball hogs? I don't think so.

George Lucas also brought up similar opinions in Star Wars. One idea in Star Wars was that you had to be one with the force to be a Jedi and not an evil Sith. In simpler terms, you can't be a Jedi all alone without the teamwork of the force. The authors ideas may not be exactly the same, but both authors opinions show that being successful all alone is much harder than with a team.

This book was pretty darn good. There is only two bad things that I can say about this book. One of them is that a lot of the social situations seemed awkward. This may not be the authors fault, but nevertheless it's still a little annoying. The other thing is that it spent a little too much time setting up the story, either that or the book wasn't long enough. Other than that the book was great. Since this was only the first book in a series that is yet to come out, I think that the rest of this story could get really good now that the setup is over. This book is so entertaining, instructive, and interesting, it just sucks you right in. I hope you decided to read my book, because this series has a lot of potential. A-

1 comment:

Praying4NoWar said...

When I asked my friend what book I should read, she immediately started explaining this book to me. Should I read it?