A highly-anticipated sequel to "The Girl Who Could Fly", I am pleased to announce that "The Boy Who Knew Everything" is every bit as whimsical, fantastical and magical as the first book. Full of warmth and adventure, this book is firmly rooted to real-world problems as well as magical conflicts. It keeps readers on their toes and gives them room to figure out the mysteries that appear throughout the book - and even though this book has plenty of twists and turns, it has heart - the author writes from a young perspective and is well-aware of what kids are actually going through, supernatural or not, and it adds a refreshing touch of reality to an exciting adventure book.
If you had a chance to look at the children being described in this book, you would say that they were normal children without sparing a second glance at them - you would be wrong. These children possess supernatural abilities, whether it's the ability of super strength or X-Ray vision - and they have the power to fix world problems and prevent world crises. But they need a leader - someone who can unite their talents and use them for the greater good. Unfortunately, there is one problem in their otherwise flawless plan - the "leader", an introverted genius by the name of Conrad Harrington III, refuses to accept their offer - "Things happen for a reason. No one wants us to get involved." But Conrad suddenly faces a different perspective when his adoptive father, Joe McCloud almost dies from heart problems - which could have been prevented if the team worked together. Many things, small tragedies that Conrad notices every day around him, could have been prevented if they worked together as a team. He starts training the extraordinary children, and soon local miracles start happening - like flood victims being rescued and lost cats being found. But Conrad starts noticing a pattern - everywhere the children go, he notices a small red rock, like someone's following them - and when two members of the team, Ahmed and Nalen get kidnapped, Conrad knows for sure - someone wants to stop them. It might just be the President of the United States - or as Conrad knows him better, his father. But when his father mysteriously disappears after saving Conrad from a bullet, Conrad and his best friend, Piper are whisked into a magical and dangerous journey into the mysterious land of Xanthia to find out the truth.
This book is not perfect - in fact, I enjoyed it a little less than "The Girl Who Could Fly." It's full of cliches, it has two-dimensional "main" characters who are basically props, and other reasons why I might have disliked this book - so besides from my instant liking to any and all fantasy books (with the blatant exception of vampire romances) I liked this book because it evened everything out - even if it had cliches, it was original most of the time and even when there were two-dimensional characters introduced, the main, three-dimensional characters were strong - I especially enjoyed watching Letitia Hellion grow from a villain to a misunderstood hero. The author, Victoria Forester slipped up in some minor parts, but still had everything right for the most part, and I really enjoyed this read - I tore through the book and I'll recommend it to every reader who's enjoyed a book with a little bit of everything - adventure, fantasy, mystery, hints of suspense and sparks of realistic fiction at times.