Contender – The Challenger Written by Taran Matharu. Reviewed by Alistair, Age 14

‘There was blood in the water. Cade heaved on his fishing line, dismayed at the wriggling mass that churned beneath the surface. His catch, a flat silvered-bellied fish emerged half eaten, flopping glassy-eyed to the shoreline of the river.’

These opening lines for me really set the scene for this being a survival-based story. The fantasy world quickly comes to life in the novel giving a sense of the books theme and genre after reading the first few pages.

In my opinion this is a great start to the novel as immediately you can get a sense whether this novel is for you and whether you will keep turning the pages. Building on the theme and genre, the sense of darkness and the theme of war and battle are laid out well. I have plenty of experience of dry and boring plots however this plot never seems to falter, from the challenge of climbing mountains to fighting off aliens this book sends us on a rollercoaster of thoughts, feelings and much more.

After the introduction, we start our journey to the mountains where many obstacles are encountered but Cade and his team rise to the challenge. At this point the book does start to take a bit of time and perseverance as the build-up to the battle is lengthy. But once the battle commences it is worth the wait as the writing is compelling and with such a fantastic range of strong vocabulary this part of the novel is expressed fantastically.

You feel you are living every moment of Cade’s adventures. It then powers on to an even more dramatic ending where we get an exciting cliff hanger with Cade suddenly in great danger. Unlike a lot of novels, the cliff hanger here is super effective as you have been on the journey with Cade given the compelling writing and so you are desperate to know whether Cade survives and is okay in the end. This is the second in a series and I look forward to reading Round 3 if and when this is published.

Overall, my thoughts on this novel are that with a bit of perseverance halfway through, this novel is brilliant with a great plot, great characters and for me most importantly a great range of vocabulary. If read at the right age this is a real page-turner, especially I imagine if you have already read Contender The Chosen which is the first in the series.

The writing certainly inspires me as a young reader and I will look to use this sort of style and vocabulary in some of my own writing.