“Hero” by Mike Lupica is an action-thriller adventure of a fourteen year old boy named Zach Harriman. This is a story that manages to use a combination of a serious tone, with what would seem to be a cliche idea of a boy in school who finds out that he has super powers and wants to find out who he is! However, all similarities with other stories end there as in this story Zach, instead of spending his time defending people from evil and getting the girl of his dreams, etc, this story takes a more suspense filled, twists around every corner, epic novel of a boy trying to find out how his father, a secret super hero, died in a plane crash. But is this story worth reading? Let’s find out.

Some really positive things about this book is its story. As already mentioned, the story has to do with Zach finding out how his father had died, while realizing his abilities left on by his father. Spoilers will not be included in this critique but all you need to know, this story will keep you guessing and is a very thrilling experience. Also it does a great job of setting up all the characters in the story. Even minor characters like Zach's mom have roles in the story that really make you feel connected to them all and make you wonder, “What will happen later with these characters?”. This story also has a huge variety of sports talk in it. So if you are a sporty person, you can also find great quality in how characters talk!

However this book does have some very slight, but definitely noticeable, negative prospects. If you are not the sporty type you will get really tired of all the sports talk that seem to take place on every page of the story. It starts to get really repetitive, not just in sports talk but in all the twists. Its nice to be given a curveball every now and then, a little suspense for the reader. But at the end of every, literally, EVERY chapter, there is always a “And the person standing there was…” “And as it turns out...” etc. The story either does this to where the suspense doesn't surprise you any more, to where you don't even want to hear it. Also each chapter is only around 5 pages max, out of a 289 page book, which means there is 43 chapters! Every three chapters could work as one small chapter. It feels like the author tried to hard to make each chapter suspenseful by ending each chapter after each question!

In short, this book does have its infuriatingly frustrating flaws, but no amount of nitpicking and cheap criticizing will stop this book from being one of the best I’ve ever read. The positives heavily outweigh the small negatives. If you see this book in your local library and just need a thrilling experience, this is definitely worth renting or even purchasing.












This book gets a respectable 4.5/ 5











Please, go out and find this book!