"The story draws you in in a way that makes you want to keep reading."

Barcode: The Legend of Apollo

Written by Kashif Ross

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Book Synopsis

Spencer's an infamously well-known “god” uninterested in his own fate. He turns nineteen-years-old on the first day of his last year at Colt Academy, the academic institution for gladiators. To celebrate, he unwillingly mentors a mysterious nerd, watches his family's helicopter plunge into the ground, and meets a strange Louisianan boy that may want to kill him. With the future of his family's fortune on the line, Spencer not only has to fight the occasional trip to Hades, but also train with his most hated childhood friend, discover the truth about his mother's death, and reestablish his legend as America's savior.

Bec's Rating

Bec's Review

From the start of this book I felt like I was missing some important information and struggling to catch up, a feeling that continued the whole book. There was little background information about the Barcodes or how they worked or even why the Gods powers were channelled in this way, rather the story seemed to expect you to know all this and while some bits were later explained these explanations were not enough to make up for the lost feeling that continued throughout the book. A few paragraphs in the introductory chapter would have been enough to stop me from feeling like I was playing catch up.

However even if the necessary background information about this future version of our world had been included there would still have been times when I felt as if I was missing something important. The book was fast paced and while I enjoyed reading it and always wanted to know what would happen yet, and while it captured my interest I kept feeling like I was missing something important. Sometimes there would be words or events referred to that would cause me to wonder if I missed a scene. Quite a few of the action scenes had me confused as to what exactly was happening, making me wish there was a film of this book simply so that I could visually see what the words seemed to struggle to adequately portray to me.

Then of course there is the controversial switch between perspectives later on. Without spoiling the story I will simply say that it starts in the first person from one character, who you grow quite attached to and then at the end switches to the first person perspective of another, a move which is quite shocking and took some time to adjust to.

However despite all these problems I did enjoy Barcode, The Legend of Apollo. While I constantly felt like there was some information I was missing, this didn’t stop me from devouring page after page and wanting to find out what would happen next. The story draws you in in a way that makes you want to keep reading despite the confusion. Overall this is a good read if you don’t mind a little confusion. Should it find a way to provide the necessary background information about the Barcodes, and to remove the feeling of missing information from the rest of the book then one day this book may even be worthy of 5 stars. For now I can only give it 4.

Disclaimer: May not be appropriate for children due to violence and sex.