I’m on a roll! This is the Third Read from my Shelf Control pile!

Now I’m wondering how long it’s going to take me to read Warcross. Well I do have the other two books in this series to finish first, so we’ll see.

See my Shelf Control post for the summary.

Why I recommend it:

There were so many things I loved about this book, but most of all I loved Adam, our protagonist and narrator. He’s 17, talented, a bit of a geek, good to his family and totally lovable – not to mention an incredibly bad-ass pilot. When everything run by computers stops working, Adam finds his old clunker of a car to be an invaluable commodity, that and the ultralight aircraft he’d just finished building with his dad. As his community starts to come together to survive, he finds that his skills are in high demand and that he has a knack for observation.

I found the way the situation plays out to be totally believable also. The author talks about rioting and looting, and fighting for resources. Killing becomes inevitable as the animalistic nature of humans takes over and surviva

l of the fittest reigns supreme. I even enjoyed the action sequences and got a very vivid picture of how the scene was playing out. I’ve also learned a lot about The Art of War from, of all places, the old neighbour next door. Herb is Adam’s mysterious neighbour. A dithering old man who becomes the next best thing to Jason Bourne once the computers go down. I’m dying to know his story. And after finishing the book I still don’t know his story, but my curiosity and connection to the characters certainly sent me scurrying for books 2 and 3.

One thing I did find a bit confusing was the locations. I was delighted to find out that Eric Walters was a local boy (local to Southern Ontario), and even more delighted to recognize neighbourhoods and streets from the Greater Toronto area. I could picture Adam landing on the 403 and glimpsing the abandoned buildings of Toronto in the distance. Yet Walters never fully committed to the Toronto location, and I’d love to know why. At one point Adam remarks that his father is half way across the country (in Chicago) so that threw me. I would love to have seen a Canadian setting, if only to see something new; and who knows, maybe non-Canadians would learn something about Canada?

Rating: Four stars

Suitable for teens. I would advise caution as there’s quite a bit of violence and killing, but not gratuitous.