Award: Awesome Indies: APPROVED
Categories: Paranormal, YA Fantasy Urban
Tag: teen-urban-fantasy/
Series: Matt Archer
Author: Kendra Highly
Fourteen-year-old Matt Archer thinks his life is pretty lame until he discovers something terrifying on a weekend camping trip at the local state park: monsters are real.
Assessed
27/04/2014
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Awesome Indies
April 30, 2014
Four stars.
Matt Archer is a modern coming of age superhero story. A mystical knife chooses Matt to be its wielder after he defeats a monster while on a camping trip with his uncle. This catapults Matt into the military world of monster hunters, helped by his green beret uncle, he is put through a crash course in monster hunting and sent back home to scout out and defeat the ‘bear’ monsters in his area whilst maintaining utmost secrecy from his family and school friends.
I found it very hard to believe that a fourteen year old would be able to live such a double life without his family or school becoming aware of it. Even harder to believe is that apparently in the entirety of the US special forces, they couldn’t even spare one man to protect a fourteen year old boy so he got his best friend to come hunting with him.
The prose itself was well written. it accurately evoked the life of a high school teenager with a crush, the excitement of his first kiss and the awkwardness of growing up. The monster action scenes were also very engaging and the plot moved along at a good pace. The characters were well rounded and there is a good mix of action, humour and romance. This book ticks all the boxes if you’re willing to suspend your disbelief about certain plot points.