My library has The Rising shelved with adult fiction, but the target audience seems to be teens, given the lead characters. Those characters are Alex and Samantha. Alex is a star football player and Samantha is his tutor. When Alex suffers a head injury in a game, a CAT scan reveals something unbelievable in his head. Then his parents are killed - and some otherworldly entity seems bent on killing him as well. Sam and Alex end up on the run, desperately trying to find out what's going on. And it's pretty huge. Save the world kinda huge.
Alex and Sam are both likable leads. They're opposites and although opposites attract, I'm not sure about the romance between the two. I think the story would have been good without the romantic thread this time out. It seemed forced and having it occur more organically in future entries would be more believable. However their strengths do play off each other well.
Land and Graham have come up with an interesting concept, but I found the amount of detail used to describe some of their theories and science to be somewhat overwhelming (and okay - boring). To the point where I started skimming. I think the depth of detail would be daunting for teen readers who may be looking for the same thing I was - action and a plot that moved along a little quicker. I get that this is the foundation book, but I did find it too dense and drawn out. I think it could have been tightened up. I found the 'bad guys' to be somewhat one-dimensional and clichéd. Co-authoring a book must be a challenge.
This adult reader found The Rising to be just an okay read. I would be curious to see what teen readers thought. Read an excerpt of The Rising.
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