Title: Saucerville (Saucerville, #1)
Author: Jordan Hofer
Summary: Elliot Hill hates UFOs. Growing up in McMinnville, Oregon (aka Saucerville), Elliot is fed up with loonies wearing aluminum foil hats. After a science project leads him to the revelation that his long-lost mother is still alive and held captive on a flying saucer, Elliot and his best friends, Stella and Whitley, are pulled into a secret world of UFOs, men in black, and alien abductions. Now their only hope for survival and escape is their powerful friendship. But the Gray aliens have other plans, and one of the friends is about to change…
Genre/Pages: Science-Fiction/236
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2.5 of 5)
My Review: Yeah, I admit it, I’ve been putting off this review. Trying to come up with how best to phrase it. First off, my 2.5 Star review means simply .Not my cup of tea, but you might enjoy it! If it sounds like your kind of book make sure to check it out. It’s excellently written, the content just wasn’t for me.. It does not mean that I hated this book, or the author, or any such thing. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. So I’m gonna be honest.
I went into this book expecting a fun, middle-grade version of I am Number Four, or some such novel. That’s definitely not what I got, but I still enjoyed it. The first half anyway. The characters were fantastic, and I loved reading the dialogue among them. And the development! Though I may not have enjoyed it all, the development was phenomenally written, and the character’s stayed believable, and, well, themselves throughout the whole thing. The writing was fun, believable, and exciting. The writing, throughout the entire book was fantastic, and I LOVED IT! Jordan Hofer definitely has a lot of potential as an author.
So why isn’t this book my cup of tea? Let’s put it this way; I read the the book in 2 sittings. The first because (though a little, okay a LOT, preachy about UFOlogy & the fact that UFO’s exist), I still enjoyed the plot, and the characters. The second half, for me anyway, went downhill. The plot became violent and… revolting, too much so for my liking, and, though it was fast paced and exciting, that isn’t why I read it in one sitting. I am very… sensitive when it comes to violence and general nastiness, especially when it comes to novels about middle school aged children, and I just couldn’t stand it.
Content Advisory: Many scenes of intense action and violence. A scene that seems to balance on the edge of a sex scene (With Middle School children!), it never happens, but they are there ‘because the aliens want to see how humans reproduce’. An 11 yo gets physically and mentally abused, and almost killed, by his father. 3 children have many ‘scientific experiments’ run on them by aliens. e.g. needles stabbed into their eyes, up their noses, and in places I am not going to mention. Children (and adults) in extreme agony. One get’s his/her heart ripped out of his/her chest, thus killing him/her. You ‘see’ lots of disturbing things. Disected human bodies having reflex tests run on them, and many other things I’ve blocked out of my memory. A drunk man calls his brother “Dicky”. A child turns psychotic and murders and tortures many aliens.
To Sum it Up: If you’ve got a better stomach for violence, and you don’t mind a little UFO preaching, this is the book for you! Exciting, fast paced, excellently written, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. But I DEFINITELY would only recommend it to readers 15+.
Have you heard of this book before? Have you read it? Did you like it?
COMING SOON:
I’m currently in the middle of reading Dragon Boy & The Witches of Galza by A.A. Bukhatir.
Escaping Reality – One Book at a Time 