Mundie Moms

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Book Review: The Vindico by Wesley King


By: Wesley King
Published by: Penguin Teen
Released on: June 14th, 2012
Source: ARC from publisher to review
4 stars: I Enjoyed It
Purchase from: Penguin | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

The Vindico are a group of supervillains who have been fighting the League of Heroes for as long as anyone can remember. Realizing they’re not as young as they used to be, they devise a plan to kidnap a group of teenagers to take over for them when they retire—after all, how hard can it be to teach a bunch of angsty teens to be evil?

Held captive in a remote mansion, five teens train with their mentors and receive superpowers beyond their wildest dreams. Struggling to uncover the motives of the Vindico, the teens have to trust each other to plot their escape. But they quickly learn that the differences between good and evil are not as black and white as they seem, and they are left wondering whose side they should be fighting on after all . . .


With fast-paced action, punchy dialogue, and sarcastic humor, this high-stakes adventure from a talented new YA voice pulls you in from the first page- quoted from Goodreads

Sometimes the only way to out smart a Villain it to become evil in order to become a super hero, or is it.... *evil laugh* If you took The Justice League and X-Men and introduced them to the Breakfast Club, you'd get The Vindico. This well written, fast paced book is one both YA and adult readers will enjoy. It's at times humorous, other times action paced and yet at the heart of this story is a message readers can walk way with. The thing I enjoyed the most about Wes's writing is how he was able to blur the lines of good and evil. It was incredibly fascinating for me to see how my first notion that someone was wrong, or the choice someone else made was good, was in fact not necessarily the truth. Getting to see how someone on the "other side" of that action saw it was eye opening, and explained a lot about the history of two groups and the feelings towards each other. 

Mixed into this story about Superheroes and Villains, are 5 proteges who were all kidnapped and in a round about way forced to join the world's greatest villains, The Vindico. Each of these kids are just your average teens, and yet there's something about each one of them that will help them grow into these amazing kids with superpowers. You know the kind of power you wish you had, like jedi mind trick powers, super strength, speed and more. As much as I loved getting to read about and understand the back story on how some of the villains came to be and their ties to the League of Hereos, I enjoyed getting to know about the 5 proteges more. 

Wes's writing is fabulous, as he tells the story from all angles, and introduces each character into the story in a very distinct way, making it very easy to follow along with. This not only made the story flow well, but it kept me invested with this story, and all that was going on. I seriously love the Justice League, and really any sort of well created Super Hero vs Super Villain story, and The Vindico was the perfect mix of that. This is a story that I surprisingly read in one setting, I enjoyed it that much. It has all the right elements that I enjoy in my beloved super hero story's, and then some. Like humor, a little bit of romance, kick butt characters, characters who are trying to find their own destiny and can easily be persuaded to do good or to do wrong, and a back story that allowed me to understand the actions of both sides of the law. 

Readers are able to get a glimpse into the lives of each of the teen characters that are introduced in this story, and are able to see how their back story's shape who they become, and the roles they now play in the epic battle of good vs evil. Given the fact there's still a lot left to know about them and their final decisions, I'm hoping that either each character will get their own book, or there will be at least a few more books in this series. I'm looking forward to reading more books from Wes and jumping back into this world with his next installment with this series. I think this is a story that both guys and girls, teens and adults alike with all enjoy, and it's one I highly recommend picking up!



Don't miss my interview with Wes here.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the review. Penguin sent me an ARC and you've got me excited to read it.

    ReplyDelete

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