Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Ratings Explanation

Language:  Some name calling like pig, punk, and knucklehead are used.  Some references to cursing like, “a steady stream of Blond Guy’s shrieked curses.”

Violence:  Charlie is ordered to be shot.  He dreams of his karate teacher hitting him repeatedly.  Charlie was convicted of killing his best friend and sent to prison but he escapes.  There is a fight and Charlie hits a guy and is then zapped by drone one.  Charlie is kicked.  There is another fight where Charlie kicks the gun out of someone’s hand.  There is punching, kicking and choking.  Charlie is handcuffed to a chair and given an injection.  He experiences pain and agony.  Charlie finds blood on the floor and then Waterman lying dead in his blood.  He is trying to escape before a bomb goes off.  Charlie uses a robot (M2) to zap a guard and drop tear gas on another group of guards.  There is a chase and guns are fired.  Charlie is backhanded in the head.  He hits a guy and uses him as a human shield.  There is more fighting, chasing and gunfire.  Men are shot and die after a car chase with police.  Homelanders invade a house and there is shooting.  Police shoot and kill men.  Charlie is taken away handcuffed by police.

Sexual Content:  Charlie remembers kissing his girlfriend.

Adult Themes:  Patriotism and terrorism are the main themes of this book.  There are references to torture that happened in a previous book, and fear of it happening again.

Synopsis

Charlie West is your average American teenage guy, doing typical teenage things:  going to high school, having a girlfriend and hanging out with friends.  When Charlie’s best friend is found dead, unbelievable things start happening and Charlie finds himself agreeing to be a part of a plan to infiltrate a group of terrorists.  In this, the third book in the Homelanders Series, Charlie is still on the run.  He is seeking for answers and help because he cannot remember the last year of his life.  He is desperate to escape the terrorist group, The Homelanders, and find the mysterious agent, Waterman, whose name he remembers being whispered into his ear.  It is a deadly game and Charlie isn’t sure who to trust and where to go.  There are so many secrets and so much he wishes he could remember.  Figuring it all out is hard but staying alive is even harder.

This book is action packed and fast moving.  There is never a dull moment.  I was grateful for the reminder of the people who put their lives on the line every day to defend our freedoms and protect our country.  I love our country and the freedoms we are blessed to have.  I enjoyed the wry humor that occasionally found its way into the book.  For instance, “My first instinct was to start pounding on the trunk lid, to start shouting, Help, Let me out! Which would’ve been pretty dumb, I know.  I mean, whoever put me in the trunk of a car probably hadn’t done it by accident.  They probably weren’t walking around thinking, Hey what happened to Charlie?  Gee, I hope we didn’t leave him in the trunk of the car!  Obviously, they’d dumped me in here on purpose, and so if I started shouting, help, help, let me out! they probably wouldn’t say, Oh, okay, sorry, we thought you liked it in there.”  This made me laugh.  Sometimes I would roll my eyes because seriously?  How much can one teenage guy actually handle?  Charlie is like a cat with 99 lives.  In the end, I would say that it was a decent read.  I appreciated that there was no profanity and swearing in it.  I would recommend 14 and up for the reading age level.   And I end with a quote that gave me a moment’s pause.  “It means that simple and simplistic aren’t the same thing.  Some things are true whether they’re simple or not.  Sometimes people just get complicated so they don’t have to stand up for what’s simple and true.  It’s easier.  It’s safer.  But that doesn’t make it right.”