Michael Vey, The Prisoner of Cell 25: Positively Electrifying

Recommended to me by Amazon (my new bookseller since the tragic death of Borders), Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25, by Richard Paul Evans, is the latest book to receive the coveted title of “the next new Harry Potter”. Despite that being a cliché saying in the bookselling universe, I couldn’t resist what could possibly be the next multibillion dollar franchise.

Michael Vey has always been a little different. He’s a little short by fourteen-year-old standards, has Tourette’s syndrome, which forces him to blink and twitch excessively, and. . .oh, yeah, has electrical superpowers. Living with his mother in a small apartment in Idaho, Michael finally finds a way to blend into the high school crowd. He’s figuratively invisible. Ostin, his only friend and straight A+ nerd, is the only person outside of Michael’s family that knows of his powers. One day, after being constantly tortured by older classmates who never receive consequences for their wrongdoings, Michael takes a stand. And does something dangerous. He uses his powers to, lightly, shock three bullies that are about to beat him.

Michael’s mom, an understanding, hard-working, caring person, refuses to let Michael to use his powers of electricity. The last few times that Michael used his powers, all times where he was in a situation of being seriously hurt, Michael and his mom packed their bags and moved to another unknown town in another unknown state. But Michael begs his mother to not make them move. He insists that only the three bullies were there to see what happened, and that they would be too scared of being called “crazy” to rat him out. Except, someone else did see Michael use his power of electricity through touch. A girl, named Taylor.

Taylor confronts Michael and asks him how he shocked the three menaces. When Michael doesn’t supply a response, she makes him a deal. Taylor reveals to Michael that she, too, has powers. She has the abilities to essentially “reboot” someone’s mind. Using electricity, Taylor can make a person disoriented and confused; forget what they were doing.

Constructing an investigation, Taylor, Michael, and sidekick Ostin, the self-proclaimed “Electroclan,” discover that both Taylor and Michael were born within one day of each other at a hospital in Pasadena, California. Searching for birth records on the hospital website, Taylor finds a gap of missing records around the time of their birthdays. After more internet research, Taylor, Ostin, and Michael discover that a new electric imaging machine was introduced around the same time as the births of seventeen children in Pasadena.

Unbeknownst to her, Taylor accidentally alerts an internet spider, a hidden internet scanner, which notifies its home base that someone is looking into the missing birth records. The spider was put into place by an agency in Pasadena, an agency that is searching for the two remaining children of the original seventeen: Michael and Taylor. And when Taylor and Michael’s mom go missing one day, Michael must take the investigation into his own hands, with the help of his best friend, of course.

Ostin and Michael take an undesirable road trip to Pasadena to get to the bottom of what this agency does, why they’re capturing these children, who may or may not be electric, and, most importantly, where they’re keeping Taylor and Michael’s mom.

Creating an unlikely group, Michael, Ostin, and Taylor are all loveable, relatable characters. A flowing, quick, read, Michael Vey is a book to be enjoyed by people of all ages. Its settings are rich with vivid descriptions and quirky expressions and its story is carefully plotted, allowing sequels galore.  While, I’m not sure if it’s the next Harry Potter, Michael Vey is certainly a refreshing, funny, mysterious, clean, new addition to a world of wonderful books.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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