Review: Well written YA fantasy
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 16, 2012
Kindle Version (free from author for honest review)When you are a boy that has had nothing but bad luck, what else should people think you are, but cursed?  This is Tony's life.  His mother killed herself when he was very young, no one really seems to know why...or at least they don't want to tell him why.  Then his caretaker, his grandmother dies and Tony is left to figure out what will happen next.  Well, what happens next is he finds out guardianship of him was given to a couple that he doesn't even know, or remember ever meeting and they live in another state none the less.  Tony doesn't want to go, but really what choice does he have?  A stranger tells him that he can stay and not have to go with them, but Tony says he has no choice and he doesn't trust the stranger.  The stranger says Tony will be cursed and shortly after a meteor hits his grandmother's house and destroys it.  Coincidence or curse?  Tony moves in with the Browns and soon is settling in best he can.  He was always above the school level he was in, but never advanced above his level because he didn't do well on homework and stuff like that.  The Browns ask him if he wants to go to a special school for the gifted instead of a regular public school.  They agree to go check it out and Tony is accepted, after a full day of testing him, at Kalos Academy.  He soon makes a few friends, but that new friendship is quickly put to the test when Tony touches an ancient scroll and it bursts into flames.  Tony is viewed by all the students and much of the staff as cursed.  The longer Tony is in school the worse it gets...they go on a field trip and Plymouth Rock starts to bleed, the small town soon is covered in flies that he now lives in, then a toxic ash starts falling, and those are just a few things that occur mysteriously only after Tony moves to town.  Is he really cursed?  If he is why?  Or is this all just one big end of the world coincidence?  This is what Tony and his friends, that he does still have, are going to go to great lengths to find out.  The friends go through much adventure, confusion, many emotions, and a lot of hard times to try to get to the bottom of things and what they find is nothing at all what they thought they would.This was a good read, but I found myself drifting a lot while reading it.  I'm not saying it was a bad book by any means, just that parts of it lost me.  This is a well written young adult fantasy/mystery, but again sometimes I found myself not really understanding what was really going on.  I mean I got that they were trying to figure out why all the mysterious things were happening and if it really did relate to Tony, but I found myself a bit lost in how it really did relate to him.  I got the drift of why and how, but I didn't feel super confident that I understood what was really going on.  Now, I will be the first to admit that it may have just been me and how I read it and perceived it all.  That being said, however, I want to say this too...the characters in this book were very easy to understand or relate to and had very good dynamics to them.  I loved the descriptive language the author used to describe things going on in the book and the characters also.  I never had any question of what to picture in my head while I was reading.  I could "see" it all, no problem.  The characters were so different from one another I couldn't help but think of the saying "opposites attract" when their friendships blossomed.  I found myself really feeling for Tony too, having such a rough time growing up, my heart went out to him.  Especially when the Browns give him a birthday gift and he tells them that he never received one before.  So, even though the plot had me confused at times, it did eventually make sense and come together for me, the characters were amazing, and the writing was very descriptive.4/5 Stars!