Scorpia

Title: Scorpia

Author: Anthony Horowitz

Illustrator: Jack Pare

Genre: Adventure

Age: 12+

Pages: 312 (paperback)

Publisher: Scholastic

      
        Alex Rider isn't any ordinary school boy of 14 years old. No, he's in fact part of the Secret British Intelligence Agency, called M16. Our adventure is soon drifting towards Venice, where Alex was told by Yassen on his previous mission that he had to go seek out Scorpia in order to learn about his father and his destiny. He soon finds the terrorist group Scorpia, and is recruited with ease into their ranks after Julia Rothman, one of the head of Scorpia, show's him proof of his father's assassination performed by M16. As the novel progresses, so does the characters, but Alex discovers a flaw within himself. He is unable to perform cold blooded assassinations! Whatever the circumstances of the young boys abilities, Scorpia had never planned to keep him alive long enough for him to excel within their ranks. Within a few days time, their new project, Invisible Sword, will be launched and hundreds of thousands of London School kids shall die! Including Alex Rider!

        Scorpia, the fifth book in the Alex Rider series, was thrilling and adventurous! For one, I haven't read any of the previous book in the series, and I could jump right into it, The book gave me some back story and the plot was really easy to pick up. The book, has a lot of action from the very beginning, which I find rare in many novels. The mystery in the book is really well written, and I didn't expect what was Scorpia was planning or what Invisible Sword was. The author did a really great job putting some emphasis on the characters, and if you look close enough you can see their wit or their emotions in general, which was really easy to relate with. This is what made me so into Alex's adventurs. Without any emphasis on the characters a story, with a great plot, will go nowhere! As good as the characters were the relationship between characters was lacking. Maybe it's the fact that I didn't read the first four books but throughout the book Alex is usually alone and I couldn't decide whether he loved or disliked his father. Maybe Alex himself couldn't decide either but none of the less it was a bit disappointing. The setting description was fairly well done, yet I sometimes found myself lost in the reading and couldn't really quite understand where the character was.

        As you guys might know, I'm a huge fantasy fan, and this book changed my perspective on mystery/adventure books. If they'd be all as good as the Alex Rider series, I think I'd be addicted to that genre!

Available on Amazon

Rating: 3/5