Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 is the first in a new teen/YA series by acclaimed author, Richard Paul Evans. The book is not typical of what you find in teen literature today. It is not full of horror and darkness. There are villains certainly and villains that you would love to hate, but it has an underlying feeling of hope and inspiration.

There are many reasons to love this book. Number one, the underlying feeling of hope. The main characters are conflicted to be sure, but the book helps show that one can make the right choices in the face of adversity without being "preachy" about it.

Number two, the protagonist, Michael Vey, has Tourette's Syndrome. It's rare to find a book where the protagonist is dealing with some sort of syndrome and dealing with it successfully. I think that can be inspirational to those teens who are dealing with things themselves. It's not hidden away in a dark corner. It's shown as something that Michael has to deal with and yet it's not the sole focus of the story.

Number three, the book is full of mystery and intrigue and adventure. It grabs your attention and doesn't let go until the end. I read the majority of it while I was standing in line at the Henry Ford Museum waiting to see the original Emancipation Proclamation (it was a 4 1/2 hour wait - totally worth it). There were plenty of conversations going on around me between strangers and friends alike, but this book held my attention so well that I never really noticed them! It was that good.

The official release date isn't for another two weeks, but the book can be pre-ordered now from Amazon and Barnes&Noble. If there's a teen in your life who enjoys science-fiction and adventure, this book is for them! Terrific book and I highly recommend it!
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Middle School
Michael discovers that he has superpowers and uses them to uncover his past!
Amazing and fun read for middle school students! Great way to show that reading can also just be for fun!

Great book by one of my favorite authors. Richard Paul Evans aims the book at Young Adult readers and so it is fast paced and easy to read. Great characters too. ( )

I enjoyed this story overall. The writing was nothing special, but the story is interesting. I think I liked Michael's powerless friend, Ostin, most. I kept imagining him as Ned from the more recent Spider-Man movies. Hatch is a sufficiently interesting bad guy, who I assume majored in psychology, because he really knows how to manipulate people. Though I do think he makes some obvious errors when trying to break one of the characters, so that was a little off-putting. It might just show how completely deranged he is though.

For as atypical as Michael is supposed to be, he sure seems to bring a lot of tropes and cliches to the book. For example, he has a crush on the cheerleader and can't talk right around her. He's also scrawny and victim to some intense bullying, yet is able to understand their motivation super quickly and easily, which is definitely not likely to happen in a situation like this. But while most of the characters don't get a lot of development and there's an amazing coincidence involving two kids with powers that happen to go to the same school that is never explained, the story overall moves along quickly and kept my attention. The climax may have been a little on the easy side, but I don't mind that, especially in a book for a younger audience. The story this first book sets up is intriguing, so I'll definitely be continuing the series. ( )

Richard Paul Evans starts a series of novels about a boy who has electric powers with this novel. The novel is aimed at a young audience, presumably readers about the age of the teen hero. Michael Vey has Tourette's Disease, which means that he has extreme facial and expresive ticks when he gets nervous. (He blinks and gulps loudly; he notes that other people with this syndrome have different symptoms, but these are his.) Michael also has a secret condition: his body is like an electric battery that can shock another person if Michael touches them directly or touches something made of metal that the other person touches.

But otherwise, Michael has the normal problems of a high school sophomore. For example, school bullies Jack and Wade stuff Michael in his locker, the prinicipal, Mr. Dallstrom, seems to be out to make life miserable for him, and he can't catch the eye of Taylor Ridley, his beautiful classmate--or when he does get her attention, his ticks start going off like crazy.

Michael also has a male friend and classmate named Ostin who is also his neighbor in the same apartment building where Michael lives with his mother. His father, who was a doctor, died several years ago, and his Mom barely makes ends meet working at a supermarket.

One of Michael's frustrations is that although he is bullied, he cannot use his electric superpower because his mother has taught him to hide it. But one day, he is forced to use it when he is attacked behind the gym. Not only is his secret now exposed to the bullies, but Taylor also witnesses his display of power, and soon she confesses that she has a secret, too.

Shortly after his birthday, Michael and his Mom are mugged by a gunman who turns out to be a decoy. The real aim of the mysterious man who put the gunman up to it kidnaps Michael's mother as well as Taylor, and tries to lure Michael into a trap.

Evans presents an exciting plot. His style is simple and straight forward, although he is sometimes unnecessarily expository. For example, the police detective investigating his mother's abduction calls Michael on the phone and offers to pick him up the next morning. He then adds, "I have your address from the police report. I'll come by around ten." I would have left off the first sentence. Does Evans really worry that some readers will get bogged down wondering how the detective knows where to find Michael? Even if it wasn't on a report, this takes place in a small town, and he is a detective. On the other hand, I am not sure that Evan's explanation for why the villain does not kidnap Michael in the first place makes sense. If he has time to kidnap Michael's mom, why not kidnap Michael at the same time--or instead?

These quibbles aside, this is a fun book to read. One pleasure comes from the fact that Evans comes up with the different manifestations of what it might mean to have electric powers. There turn out to be seventeen children with electric powers, and each one has a different power that is nevertheless analogous to something that can be done with electricity.

Evans tells the story in a linear fashion. There are no flash backs or flash forwards. Most chapters are told from Michael's first person viewpoint except for the chapters that cover events only known to Taylor, and these are told in the third person. This shift in point of view is very easy to follow.

Ultimately, this is a tale of good versus evil and how evil tempts the good to betray themselves. At one point, Ostin quotes one of his mother's favorite sayings: "The devil will tell a thousand truths to sell one lie." The villainous Dr. Hatch wants to persuade people that they need him to guide them and that they owe him their loyalty so he can use them. He can make his victims feel guilty for not letting him use them. Few can resist his mind games. Can Michael? That is the moral dilemma set up in this adventure. But moral instruction is rarely so entertainingly presented. ( )