Review: Good book for tweens and teens
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 2, 2012
Three teens, best friends Cadence and JD, and the loner Orlando happen to be sitting in the mall one day when something comes crashing through the roof.  As they get closer they discover that it isn't a thing, but resembles a man, only he's not a man, but an alien.  The catch is, no one can see him but Candace, JD, and Orlando.  The alien, who they call Alan, proceeds to tell them that there is going to be a battle, and intergalactic battle, and this battle is going to take place on Earth.  Not only that, these three are chosen to help be part of a team and will develop "special abilities," to help them as they prepare for this battle.  A series of murders and missing teens leads Alan, and his team into an investigation to find out if this is the work of the enemy.  Meanwhile, Orlando has had to move to another school after getting kicked out of his high school for fighting, but it just so happens that this new school might be one of the center hubs for the enemy's activities.  As relationships and new friendships are formed, everyone is not always who or what they seem and the investigation begins to hit closer to home than they imagined.This book was a little different that what I expected.  After seeing the cover and reading the blurb, I expected there to be a lot of alien activity, battles, and the like, but this centers more on the teens involved in the book, their lives, and them discovering their new abilities and learning how to use them.  Probably about half-way through you start to see a little more about the actual alien involvement, though the story deals more with preparing the teams for the battle than the actual battle itself.  The characters were cute and each had their own unique personality, and the interaction between them was quite humorous at times. Orlando is rather snarky and makes a lot of sarcastic comments.  JD is more the hero type person, and Cadence is the brains of the bunch.  We get to know Alan a little, but the alien factor, the battle and what is was actually about still remained somewhat vague, and I would have liked to have seen a little more clarity regarding that.  The action did pick up somewhat about three-quarters into the book, as they infiltrated the enemy's camp, but up until that point, it was a little slow-paced and more focused on the teens themselves.  The book ends in a bit of a cliff hanger, so there is obviously going to be more to the story.  Overall, Battlefield is probably something that would appeal more to tweens and younger teens, and I would recommend it to that agegroup.