I have no shame in bypassing the Classics section, the New York Times best sellers, and Oprah’s choice of the month in order to make my way to a growing sensation; the young adult/teen sci-fi fantasy section. The Twilight series has certainly sparked a wave of writers tailoring their books to grab the attention of pre-teen (and adult) populations everywhere.

I have noticed a pattern inherent in all of these books. Invariably there are hot people with incredible powers – whether through magic, alien heritage, or supernatural curses – who find themselves in small remote towns that later plays as the stage for an epic war. Most of the time the teenager in question desires one of two things; a break from the mundaity and ordinariness of their miserable, yet privileged, lives or the opposite, a desire to be normal and experience the everyday rituals that we take for granted.  Similarly, the book usually includes a love story sub plot that is often the cause of all the trouble - like some modern day Romeo and Juliet. I rather enjoy these books for there is just enough "human drama" to make it relatable but the majority of the novel is epic battles and displays of incredible powers.

Most recently I have fallen in love with the novel “I Am Number Four”; a four hundred and some page book that I voraciously finished in one day.  The novel relates the story of a planet named Lorien, not unlike our Earth, which was savagely attacked by a race of harbingers known as the Mogadorians. In order preserve the culture and give their people a chance of survival, nine alien children were sent to Earth. They were scattered throughout the world, each given a protector to guide them and develop their powers, so that one day they may reunite, defeat the Mogadorians, and restore life to their once beautiful planet. A clever nuance of the story is that the aliens can only be killed in sequence.The book opens with the death of #3, thus prompting #4 to go into hiding in a small remote Ohio town known as Paradise. Here #4 - also known as John Smith - must develop his supernatural abilities (known as Legacies) before the Mogadorians can track him down and kill him. The Legacies can be anything from invisibility, controlling the elements, creating light, and telekinesis. This series is projected to have 5 more additional novels, and if they are anything like their predecessor, this will surely be the next Harry Potter series of the sci-fi world. What sucks is that fans will have to begrudingly wait until August for the release of the next novel entitled "The Power of Six".

The novel has garnered enough attention that it is about to be released as a major motion picture February 18th. Typically I am leery of books getting converted into movies for they usually fail to meet the expectations of the book lovers. Typically the characters lack authenticity, story lines are dropped, and new elements are added to the movie that was found nowhere in the book. I am actually extremely excited for this release of this movie. Sporting an impressive cast ( Alex Pettyfer, GLEE's Dianna Argon, and Timothy Olyphant), critics have expressed that the movie is an excellent tension-filled adventure that stays very true to the original novel. If nothing else, the movie is going to feature the ridiculously hot Alex Pettyfer - who often gets his clothes burned up in the novel - and the grizzly hotness of Timothy Olyphant, as they battle aliens with really cool powers. It honestly doesn't take much to amuse me these days. Check out the trailer for the movie before.