Book Review: The Genius Wars by Catherine Jinks

The Genius Wars
by Catherine Jinks
Genius Trilogy

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN-10: 0-15-206619-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-15-206619-2
Publication Date: September, 2010
List Price: $17.00

Review: Look behind you. Are you sure no one is following? Let’s hope not, because then you might have just as much bad luck as Cadel, the main character of The Genius Wars , by Catherine Jinks. Cadel, 15 years old, has finally got it good; nice foster parents, a good education and good friends. But life for this genius doesn’t stay all great. Matter of fact, it’s about to get worse than ever before, as his friends start going to the hospital. This is a science fiction book but it is set only a little bit into the future. This the final book in the Genius Trilogy , so if you read the first and second books, Evil Genius and Genius Squad, you know that this is a very important book to read.

Cadel is living a normal life until Prosper English, his old enemy starts popping up on CCTV camera networks and the police learn about it. Cadel then gets called up to the big leagues to help his detective dad and cops catch this criminal. But it will be hard since Prosper English has genius criminals helping him do his dirty work. And if that isn’t hard enough, every friend or person associated with Cadel is ending up hurt. Cadel can’t take it. He hacks in to the hospital’s computer system and says he’s dead. Everyone believes it. Next he takes a trip to America to meet up with some old friends and hopefully find Prosper English and end his schemes for good. Will he do it? Will Prosper point a gun at his head again? Or maybe it’s just a false alarm? You’ll never know until you read this book.

Overall, I liked The Genius Wars . I also love the author and the way she can squeeze three genres into one: action, sci-fi, and a little mystery. The characters are portrayed very well but I’m not sure we get to learn that much about them. The dialogue is Australian, but you can still understand it easily. If it concerns you there are a few swears in it. The overall story is very addicting but it will make it much easier to understand if you read the first two books because a lot of characters are from the first two books. The ending is a little sad and comes to an abrupt stop, but it is the end of the series. You will want to keep reading this book even after it ends. This book is not slow and it will never become slow. Action is a key component to the story. Like I said before, this book has excitement that will never stop. So if you are a fan of sci-fi, action, or even mystery you might like this book. I’d rate it a big 9/10 because it isn’t my absolute favorite, but it sure is one of them. Put down your video game controllers, and head to the store to buy this one, because this book has a much higher entertainment level than that T.V.

Review written by Sean (6th grade student).

We would like to thank Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing a copy of The Genius Wars for this review.

Have you read The Genius Wars? How would you rate it?