Explorer X-Alpha by LM Preston

Title: Explorer X-Alpha
Author: LM Preston
Age Group: Tweens
# of Pages: 366
My Rating: 2.5/5

Far in the future where one is able to communicate telepathically through technology and be able to own robots, kids could finally travel to Mars. Aadi is going to be one of the many campers that will go to a new space camp and experience a world outside of their own. There, Aadi makes some friends and learns new and exciting things.

What Aadi and the others do not know is that the camp is setting them up for something bigger. Much bigger. In fact, their lives will no longer be the same as their body slowly changes into something different...

Explorer X-Alpha has a unique plot that is uncommon to most juvenile fiction today. There aren't many sci-fi novels that focuses on Mars or other planets of the future. The layout of the story is quite intriguing with great concepts. However, I was not very fond with the simplistic writing therefore making it hard for me to fully enjoy the novel. There were also a lot of characters and because their personalities did not all distinguish them from one another, I had a hard time figuring out who was who in the beginning.

The story was a bit slow in the beginning so I did not get through it as quickly as I hoped. There were times where I had to motivate myself to continue reading it. Also, sometimes the events that occurred within the novel confused me but I think my quick reading was to be blamed. If the writing style was suited to my preferences, then I definitely would have liked this novel much more.

I think Explorer X-Alpha definitely suits the taste of boys around the ages of ten or eleven because it has a lot of action and not that complex to read. So if you have a son or younger brother who hates to read, have them try out Explorer X-Alpha.

Review copy provided by LM Preston.