Sean Hutchins

Read it when I was 13 and again at 22. Full of plot holes, unexplored ideas and interesting concepts that fall flat on their face when you realize there is no more to it than “this is the reason this happened and we’re not going to explain anything else”. Perfect for a kid who doesn’t care about deep literature, so I’ll give it a pass on that front. Honestly it’s not poor writing that kills the book, it’s descriptive, well written and the author is very good at putting a picture in your head. The problems come in when there’s exposition with no context. Sure it’s a “bad” book, but if your kid is into history, action and science fiction like I was when I read it the first time they’ll probably absolutely love it.