Rick Yancey: The 5th Wave (2013)

    It's the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see (Goodreads).

     The novel does fall into the ever popular trap that teen dystopian fiction so often does, that being a tiresome romance and self-absorbed protagonist, but luckily, Yancey digs himself and his novel out of this hole by using a shovel comprised of fantastic plot development and action packed sequences that manage to stay unique one after another. The pacing is well done, except for one character's plotline which seems to be stagnant for too long at one point. Particularly in the first act, the use of flashback is utilized so extremely well, that characters barely introduced are able to have an emotional foothold in the story. Dictated with a brutal eloquence, the antagonists are well executed and remain mysterious enough for the sequels to be desired, although this could be a fault in that the antagonists are not quite fleshed out as much as they should. Overall though, the brilliantly disturbing aliens become just one of the features that make Yancey's novel succeed. 8.5/10

Ben Tripp: The Accidental Highwayman (2014)

    Mistaken for Whistling Jack and on the run from redcoats, Kit is catapulted into a world of magic and wonders he thought the stuff of fairy tales (Goodreads).

     Unlike real life, in the world of Kit Bristol, not everything is better with magic. Tripp's novel starts out reasonably well, with a fun, swashbuckling tale of highway robbery and a cool horse, but as soon as magic begins to develop, it loses a lot of its charm. The magical universe Tripp proposes is not well integrated, and the actual concept of it isn't really all that original. It appears that the author felt like adding a 'G' at the end of 'goblin' is what passes for originality. All that being said, the story becomes fairly engaging as it goers along, and once one gets past the cliche magical exploration. There isn't a whole lot of dynamic character development that isn't presented in an obvious manner, but the characters do begin to endear themselves to readers (barring any mention of a pointless love triangle). An unnecessary amount of main antagonists are added, and the dull politics that they accompany are no more intriguing. Without the magic (which sounds like a terrible thing to say) and with at least one less antagonist, Kit Bristol's tale might have been made a bit more compelling. As it is, though, it might be the very definition of enjoyably average. 6.8/10