The Paladin Prophecy: Book 1 (Paladin Prophecy, #1)

by Mark Frost

A fifteen-year-old boy who has spent his entire life trying to avoid attention finds himself in the middle of a millenia-old struggle between titanic forces when he is simultaneously recruited by an exclusive prep school and followed by sinister agents.

• ISBN10: 0375980016
• ISBN13: 9780375980015
• Publish Date: 10 May 2014 (first published 25 September 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Random House Books for Young Readers
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 296
• Language: English

Reviews

"OPEN ALL DOORS AND AWAKEN."

The Paladin Prophecy is another one of those books that have shown me how much my reading taste have changed. I liked this book when I read it years ago, but now it's just meh.

The Paladin Prophecy is a fast-paced action and thriller read. However, everything is cliché, generic and predictable. There's nothing exciting or unique.

I would have been okay with the predictability if I liked the characters, but the characters are also meh. The main character, Will West, is one of those I'm-good-at-everything characters and I alternated between feeling meh about him and disliking him because his actions scream entitlement. While Will has some really cool friends -  Ajay, Nick and Elise  - they sometimes went into stereotypical territory. I also wasn't a fan of Brooke because she's there to be Will's love interest and damsel in distress and nothing else.

Also, the characters can literally do everything and anything. Will and his friends have an interesting set of abilities that always appear at the moments where they are needed and because of that, I never felt that the characters were in immediate danger. I also had to suspend disbelief when it came to the monsters and the technology, but I found the technology and sci-fi aspects interesting. 

The Paladin Prophecy reads like a movie and it's quite interesting that one of the life lessons that Will's father tells him is:

"Don't watch your life like it's a movie that's happening to someone else. It's happening to you. It's happening right now."

However, I think The Paladin Prophecy would have been much better on the big screen. 

[layawaydragon]

I’m assuming I won/received this from NoseGraze given Ashley’s business card that came with it but can’t find an email confirmation or any other information.

When I started The Paladin Prophecy I had no idea what I was reading. I kept waiting for it to make sense but like the foreword said, answers lead to more questions.

Half-way through when a co-worker asked what it was about, my answer was still "I don't know but it started with a supernatural boy and his family being hunted..."

After finishing, I still don’t know. What’s The Paladin Prophecy? Not a fucking clue. We don’t even know who the teams are besides Guardian Angels and Men in Black. Nor where the school fits into it all.

Along with being confused on the world-building and overarching story line, it was often frustrating. Minorities and women are stereotypes at best. Will is a Marty Stu and these kids can do it all.

The action, suspense, and tension only comes from The Villains and lack of clarity. But there’s no need to worry, dues ex machine comes through every time.

Yeah, it was action packed. Yeah, I kept reading it. But that's more to being a completionist and HATE not getting answers.

It felt so...fake. The characters, the outrageous school, everything.

If the plot wasn't so "mysterious" pretending to be deep in an inch of water, this wouldn't fool anyone. At least, I hope not.



Will:

From the get-go he felt off. Why didn't he ask and push his parents to explain everything? Moving so much without it having a sane reason (like a job) and the rules are weird.

And he never asks how or why he can go faster and smarter than everyone else? Never wondered why he never got sick or pimples or ills like every other teenager?

He just assumes it's normal despite ALL the evidence to the contrary? You're actually stupid enough to believe every kid has parents do the doctoring? What teenager just goes along and doesn't get lonely and moody? How is he not more damaged?



He handled his mother’s take over and Dad’s disappearance far too well. No breakdowns. No grief or angst. He switches between mom and “Belinda” with unnatural ease. (And if they were running all the time, why didn’t they have better defenses? His mom went down without a fight.)

Then his specialness really shines when attending The Special School. His issues making friends? Gone. He’s a natural and gets an Insta-Crew. Gets the girl he immediately lusts after with a snap. Ice Queen? Melts for him. They risk everything for Will despite it all and for no reason find him trustworthy enough to believe the insane.

Will’s perfect. He has more abilities than the rest with no downsides or flaws. There’s a bully (no character or depth) that zeros in on him and Will is the only one who can handle him. He steps up, and the rest fall in line with him.



He's not real. He's a Marty-Stu, FFS.



Seriously.

It's pure teenage male fantasy. Clearly, not the market it for me. I'd leave it alone if it was just that, but it's not that simple.

Problematic: POC Characters

Nondo is the family man cabbie that helps Will get out of dodge. Then he becomes Will's spy and errand boy. He risks everything dodging work for this rando kid and almost gets killed in the process.

I can't accept that. No way in fucking hell.

Worse is the weak-ass wanna be guardian angel/pod person explanation. "Some disembodied voice told me to help you get out of dodge..." *shrug* *laugh* The Fuck?!?!



That is not okay. And you better fucking believe most people aren't stupid enough to fall for Will's bullshit lies. And I DAMN well better get some fucking answers after I almost DIE for some punk ass kid with no reward or reason.

I can't cheer for either Nondo being taken over/driven by a ~mysterious force~ to help the kid despite common fucking sense OR his abandoning his family and job to play servant to some privileged little cracker.

He's such a stereotype. And to add insult to injury, he was made subservient, dumb, eager to please Will and quick to be irresponsible regarding his family.

Fuck that bullshit.



It becomes compounded when Will gets to school. He promptly meets the security, which are all Samoan from the same tribe and all look alike. I mean, even those who bother to look at them can't tell the difference.

How stupid is that? Go Google image Somoans. You're either blind or racist if you say they're all the same. Fucking relatives don't all look like twins or clones. Are they saying they're are clones or some shit? WTF? That’s a hard pill to swallow from a white protagonist towards a minority group. Honestly, WTF were you thinking Frost? If the guards all looked alike and were white, people would immediately think it’s iffy and dig in. But POC? Eh, they all look alike anyways and reaffirms those close-minded judgements.



Then we meet Ajay the token POC friend. He's the unassuming, reassuring, non-threatening uber tech nerd. He's been there longer than Will, but Will automatically makes friends and gets his girl. Ajay? Pfffft. He didn’t even share his gadgets with the rest until Will. He gives Will this pep talk about dating at the academy but is single and seemingly has been.

He's there for the tech stuff and does little else. Instead, Whitey Will has to give him a pep talk on how useful he's been in the grand plan without mentioning the kickass gadgets that made a difference in the fight and all the techy sleuthing leading up to it. His masculinity and worth has to be propped up by Whitey Will.

Then there’s the Native American track coach…**SIGH** I give up.



Problematic: Women Characters
No, this isn’t about Will checking out every female he comes across. That’s natural. But they all live to serve him and stereotypes.

Ms. Robinson is the attractive mother stand-in.

Brooke is the privileged romance interest that does nothing, has zero chemistry with Will, falls for him instantly anyways, and has to get rescued.

Elise is the ice queen with her own brand of powers. If playing up her and Will’s growing “connection” wasn’t a goal (cuz omfg cat-fight and love triangles!), I’m sure the deus ex machina would’ve passed over her too.



The Gang:

They bond immediately and risk everything together after a day. They push the "We're roommates, we're your friends, you should trust us" and it's downright creepy. Being that nosy and intrusive should've rang alarms in Will's head especially after his childhood. But NOPE!

Not to mention, they clearly weren’t that close before Will. He’s the lynchpin, he completes them.

The Center for Integrated Learning:

How is it the school is responsible for educating public figures like politicians (including presidents), Nobel prize winners, blah blah blah, but no one's heard of it?

It's not possible to keep that a secret. Even before all our social media and intense internet connections, people would fucking know. And if no one heard about it, why do they need security because of the famous and rich families that go there?

The scope, the setting is just over the top. It's huge, has everything and seemingly invisible. Except Will found it on online maps, FFS.

The ONLY thing I liked was seeing Will the Genuis having his head swirl from his new classes. But it went too far in the other direction to make it fake ass bullshit. All of a sudden “Science is a foreign land with a foreign language” for Will? I understand needing help when joining in the middle but his knowledge is inconsistent.

If he’s supposedly this far behind, how the fuck is he going to make the grade there? Why’d they bother taking him? Why did they bend the rules to get him in when they’d be in deep trouble for doing so? They didn’t even speak to his parents before agreeing and buying his way there. In the middle of the night. Suddenly and while alone.

Yeah, right.

[Ashley]

booknook — Young Adult book reviews

Oh my god. Full stop.

This book totally awed me. I almost passed up the opportunity to read The Paladin Prophecy. It wasn't grabbing me. But on a whim, I figured "Why not" and got it through Netgalley. I'm so glad I did! For me, this book was right on par with Insignia, both in style/story and in how much I loved it. And if you read my review of Insignia, you'll know how much I adored it and realize exactly what that statement means. It means that The Paladin Prophecy is insanely "knock-your-pants-off and leave you butt naked but you won't even care because you're too busy reading" awesome. It's like Harry Potter style school/fantasy, meets "kids save the world" Percy Jackson, meets insanely awesome mind-blowing "OHMYGOD I WANT THAT" technology, meets the page-turning awe that is Dan Brown conspiracy/history-brought-to-life/secret society. Put it all together and you get this incredibly original story that will suck you in and won't let you go.

The first thing I have to talk about is the characters, because holy crap, the characters are really what make this book absolutely freakin' incredible. Every single character in this book is so alive and filled with amazing personality. I actually didn't fully appreciate Will's character until maybe 100+ pages into the book. The first part of the book is largely Will on his own, running from danger, and maybe interacting with one or two people here and there. But when Will settles into his new group of friends, he really comes alive! He has this cocky, witty personality that really shines when he's stepping up to bullies. He doesn't take any crap from them and he makes that so obvious. IT'S AWESOME!!! Like, wow.

The other characters in the book are equally amazing. They're all hilarious and quirky in their own ways and had me cracking up. I want to be friends with these people! Seriously! Where can I find them?? Why aren't my friends that cool??

"I happen to be sitting on the sickest, most awesome idea for a social network site ever. [...] I take all the best parts of YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, and combine them into a whole new service called... YouTwit-face."

—ARC of The Paladin Prophecy, Page 173

As for the story, sometimes I honestly felt like I had no idea what the heck was going on, but I didn't care, because something kept me absolutely glued to this book. I just sat down and read and read and read, because I had to know what the heck was going on and I was eager to absorb every word until my eyes bled! I literally had no idea where this book was leading for the longest time. I just couldn't get my head around what to expect — is this magic? Is this kick-ass X-Men genetic evolution? Is this Dan Brown conspiracy? I had no idea, but it just wasn't something I was worrying about. I was too busy cracking up over the hilarious dialogue, or wishing the characters existed in real life, or just enjoying the action and mysterious plot as it was developing. I realized that this book is about the ride; it's about the not knowing; and it's about trying to solve the mystery of what's going on.

Throughout the book, we learn about 100 different "rules to live by" that Will's father drilled into him as he was growing up. At first I thought these rules were kind of weird and cheesy but pretty soon I was retracting that statement. They're pretty awesome, and surprisingly good advice. They definitely gave the story a little something extra, since they kept popping up in good moments. I actually felt like I was learning life advice from this book, as weird as that sounds! here are a few examples:

#5 TRUST NO ONE
#7 DON'T CONFUSE GOOD LUCK WITH A GOOD PLAN
#26 ONCE IS AN ANOMALY. TWICE IS A COINCIDENCE. THREE TIMES IS A PATTERN. AND AS WE KNOW...
#27 SOMETIMES THE ONLY WAY TO DEAL WITH A BULLY IS TO HIT FIRST. HARD.

—ARC of The Paladin Prophecy

I won't reveal anymore because part of the fun of the book is seeing these rules for yourself as the story develops. ;)

The end of this book was an absolute whirlwind of action and puzzles. Parts of it were honestly a little confusing to me, but I think that might have been the formatting on my e-ARC. We suddenly hear from a bunch of different points of view but there were no section separators (and not even extra line breaks) to tell me when the POV was switching, so it got a little crazy. But I'm sure this will probably be better laid out in the final copies!

I definitely recommend this book a hundred times over if you like action, mystery, a bit of science, and some crazy fantasy X-Men type stuff. This book could easily be the next Percy Jackson & the Olympians!