Reading Tai-Bo

What did I learn from reading this week?

This week I read Failstate: Legends by JohnW Otte. Now I don’t usually post a picture, but I loved this book. I know, I know, I’m a 34-year-old mom and not a teenage boy. Still loved the book. I read a lot of YA and I was skeptical about a Christian super hero book. I love super hero movies and The Hunky Hubby and I are watching all of the seasons of Smallville right now, I love super heroes and I wasn’t sure how the CBA would handle them.

I was impressed. As a reader I can tell that John W is a real live card-carrying geek, the perfect writer for this kind of book. I am married to a board game geek (yep he does indeed have a profile on boardgamegeek.com) and was worried that some non-geek would try to write something like this and get the tone all wrong. Not so! The feel is just right. He gets the classic hero angst down pat. Young man with powers, misunderstood, wants to change the world, no one believes in him, never gets the proper credit, but in the end he puts his demons behind him and steps up to bat against evil. Because it is the right thing to do.

I love the main hero, I love how he is embarrassed of his brawny brothers ever-present perfections, of having a sidekickish name, that he is horribly scarred and yet has not turned to a live of crime. Much fun to be had here. And the second book was just as good. Fast plot, lots of twists and turns, lots of boyish angst. It was all good. Oh, and it was funny too. He made the zombie apocalypse thing humorous enough that I was able to read it. I am not a big fan of zombies. Can’t watch zombie movies or shows, they give me nightmares. But this worked for me. If this is your kind of genre, if you are well versed in all things super, this book will not disappoint. He knows his stuff. If you don’t like superheros…I’m not sure? But I enjoyed every page.

What did I learn from my reading this week…

That you must be steeped in your world. That you need to be deeply aware of the expectations of your target audience to get it just right. Then your genre book can sing the song your audience wants to hear and they will love it.