LitPick Review
This novel is a short science fiction story designed mainly to entertain. The book is short and an easy read. It was a fairly serious story, but it has a few touching and sweet parts. It is set in the Ender series that Orson Scott Card created, probably in the middle of Ender's Game. In the book, a boy named Zeck is taken from his abusive Fundamentalist Christian family into Battle School due to his amazing memory. War, however, is against his pacifist views, but religion is against the rules at Battle School. He still refuses to participate in the mock battles. Therefore, he is shunned by his fellow students, who are all being trained to become soldiers. He ends up in Rat Army with Dink and Ender. When the students rebel by giving holiday gifts, Zeck is confronted with the truth about his family and the holidays.
Opinion:
This book is a decent, but not nearly as good as Card's other Ender novels. To read this book, you need to have read at least Ender's Game, the first book in the Ender series. Otherwise, none of the characters or the settings will make sense. Even if you have read the series as I have, the book is a disappointment. It is not nearly as good as any of Card's other novels. I would recommend reading it only if you are an avid Ender fan and must read every story about Ender. The plot is only mediocre and the story is too short to fully develop the few interesting characters. It is basically a Christmas and holiday story using the characters in the Ender universe.
