How To Grow Your Geek: Parenting and More!

Hi guys,

Have I got a book review for you. ))) I have found my Harry Potter replacement, and I think after this you might as well. This series is just that good.

Alex Rider “Stormbreaker” – by Anthony Horowitz
Reviewed by Darcy Low

After J K Rowlings wrote the last Harry Potter, I was like a lot of others thing what will I ever find that is as good as this series? I have been looking and now i think I might have found it. I am excited to share this one guys. )

From the back of the book: “Recruited! They told him his uncle Ian died in a car accident. But fourteen year old Alex Rider knows that’s a lie, and the bullet holes in his uncle’s windshield confirm his suspicions. But nothing prepares him for the news that the uncle he always thought he knew was really a spy for MI6. (Britain’s top secret intelligence agency.) Recruited to find his uncle’s killer’s and complete Ian’s final mission, Alex suddenly finds himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse, with no way out.”

I swear this book needs to have the James Bond theme behind it. hehe.

I can’t tell you guys how much I loved this book and this series. It is by far one of the best I have ever picked up as a summer read. The character’s are all believable, the plot is well written, and the actions of the main character Alex, is the way any fourteen year old would act in real life. But I am getting a head of my self here. Sorry just excited to share this.

Alex is a young orphan teen who is being raised by his uncle Ian, (who is a banker.) They both live alone in the English country side with a housekeeper named Jack. (Jack is a she btw, a young woman from America.) Uncle Ian raises Alex the best he can, and takes him hiking, white water rafting, and anything physical. He also teaching him sports, how to play cards and shoot pool. But because of his work, Uncle Ian travels a lot and isn’t always home. A few times that he comes back he has mysterious injuries. Like bruises and a broken arm, (hmmmm.) The last trip Ian took, he was gone for a long time, and when two men in dark suits show up one morning to tell Alex that his uncle was killed in a car crash, Alex isn’t buying it at all. Uncle Ian was always extremely careful driving. So the story of him driving at high speeds and crash, just doesn’t fit. And as you can tell by the back cover, there is a lot more going on.

Alex is then taken to a office and meet the people his uncle really worked for and is told what is really going on. (done very well I thought and believable as well.) Alex is then given a choice, he can live out hos life as a typical teenager, or he can join the spy team, find his uncle’s killer and find out what is behind operation Stormbreaker. Which was his uncle’s last assignment.

Stormbreaker itself are new, highly advanced personal computer system designed by one man, Herod Sayle. A dwarf of a man but a real genius as well, He is building these computers with educational software built in, then he well be giving them away yo the schools. (Think of Bill Gates and what they are doing for third world countries. Same thing here.) Which seems all well and good. But why is there such secrets about the project, why is the compound surrounded vy arm guards and why was Alex’s uncle assassinated in broad day light, Just what are they hiding anyway??

What I loved about this book, and why I am getting everyone of them. (five so far.) Is who it is written and how Alex could be a real teenager. He is bright and intelligent, he is physically fit and enjoys sports. He questions things, and does always believe what he is told. Plus, unlike Harry Potter, he gets himself out of tight spots using what he knows and his own life experiences. Oh don’t get me wrong, he is given gadgets like James Bond. (A yo yo that acts as a grappling hook. A gameboy that with the change of cartridges, allows him to detect bugs in a room, see though things….more or less, scan and send things back to head quarters, and surf the net.) But he only uses these things once or twice. The rest of the time he is using his street smarts. And the villains, although very creepy, isn’t over the top so. In fact, dad read this first book along with me, and even he said that if you didn’t know Alex was a teen, this could be any adult spy novel. it’s just that good.

Anthony Horowitz has been writing books for a while, and is a new york times best sellers, and I can see why. This really well written and you can tell that he wanted something that treats teen with respect. No where in here did I even feel I was talked down too, or that my hero wasn’t believable. He must have tapped into his past as a boy, maybe pretending to be a spy when he was younger.

This is the first book of a series, and you really should start with it. It’s is Alex’s origins after all. The action will keep you flipping pages to see where Alex will be next and what will happen. I still have not finished the book, hehe. When last I left him, Alex was in the back of a military truck with a canvas top, the second to the last truck in a convoy. Traveling in the dead of night They had just pulled onto a deserted beach, where a submarine just surfaced, the top had just opened up and out has stepped who Alex was told is the man they believe killed his uncle. Alex is just raising up out of the back of the truck, when the headlights of the last truck comes on……..

Stormbreaker, and the other books can be found at any bookstore, They are from Penguin Teens.

www.penguinteens.com

But the series and the writer have their own web site:

http://www.anthonyhorowitz.com/alexrider/books/

Trust me guys, you will want to pick these up, even if you are not a teen but like spy novels. you will love these! So move over Harry, there’s a new boy in town.

Darcy