The Paladin Prophecy by Mark Frost was an exhilarating, confusing adventure about speed demon Will West, who grew up isolated by his parents, hiding special abilities that seemed to pop up on a monthly basis. He moved from city to city every few years with set of rules to live by that would make him not, in any way, stand out. But a mistake occurs; Will takes a test that reveals how extraordinarily brilliant he is, and makes him a target both for a secret group hell bent on kidnapping him and his family and a school for exceptionally smart (and oddly talented) individuals.

On the run, Will heads to The Center for Integrated Learning to hide from the people who are after him. But what he thought was a safe haven might turn out to be a part of what he was running from in the first place.

I'm a huge fan of boarding school novels, so when I first read the description of The Paladin Prophecy I was psyched. But it definitely wasn't as wonderful as I wanted it to be.

I had three big problems with the book:

1. The Narration. It's written in third person omission, but a lot of the time it breaks away from any of the characters and focuses on random events that are pertinent to the continuing plot, but aren't something that any of the characters could see. It felt really unnatural, and made it painfully obvious that the author was a screenplay writer first. It felt like a screenplay, with scenes that a viewer would watch but the characters aren't aware of. But I didn't sign up to read a screenplay, I wanted a novel.

2. Will West's powers. This guy was like Superman, in that fact that he had everything going for him superpower-wise that it felt really unnatural and unfair. Every situation he got into, he discovered a new power that made him able to get out of it or excel crazily. He never needed anyone else's help and had no weaknesses. It was annoying how infallible he was.

3. The "love" story. I have "love" in quotations because it was so poorly included and immensely fake. Brooke, the love interest, is supposed to be this attraction/love at first sight for West, but she has zero personally and is completely different then he is. Plus, she's extremely suspicious. It's obvious that she is the wrong choice for Will, and their relationship is barely included and didn't make me swoon at all.

But other than those points, I loved the writing--very descriptive but simple. And it was so funny. Most of the characters had great personalities, which made me wished the books had more of them and less of Will.

I still haven't decided if I'm going to read the sequel.

Favorite Quote:

"Dude, Todd's real name should be Richard...because he's a dick. His picture's on the cover of the dick-tionary. He registers a constant nine-point-five on the Dickter Scale. In other words...if I'm not making this clear, Todd's a massive dick, on the highest order of dick-titude." (page 236)