Friday, June 20, 2014

Elixir | Ted Galdi


Meet 14-year-old Sean Malone. He has an IQ above 200, a full-ride scholarship to one of the country’s top universities, and more than one million dollars from his winning streak on Jeopardy. However, Sean wishes he could just be normal.


But his life is anything but normal. The US government manipulates him, using him as a codebreaker in pursuit of a drug lord and killing innocent people along the way. 

For reasons related to his personal security, Sean finds himself in Rome, building a new life under a new name, abandoning academics, and hiding his genius from everyone. When he’s 18 he falls in love. The thrills begin again when he learns that his girlfriend is critically ill and it’s up to him to use his intellect to find a cure, a battle pitting him against a multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical company and the demons of his past. 


Elixir is a story about identity, secrets, and above all, love.



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Elixir is a thrilling book following a genius basically saving the world. The protagonist, Sean Malone, is a brilliant mathematician who has just figured out the formula to hack into anything. With the authorities after him, Sean is forced to change identities and move to Rome.

Four years later in Rome, Sean falls in love, when suddenly his girlfriend gets sick with the Ebola virus and Sean has to relive his past to save his true love. 

I really enjoyed this book, more the plot and events than anything else. Throughout the entire book I was rooting for Sean, wanting him to solve the mystery that's stumped everyone, wanting him to succeed. The story itself was incredibly intriguing and so thrilling to read. It's fast paced and action-packed book, if it sounds like something you'd like I'd definitely recommend it! 
If you like books like the Unwind series then you should try out Elixir!

Like I mentioned before, I honestly enjoyed this book a lot. The plot was intense and thrilling and overall extremely fun to read. 

However, there's one thing I had a problem with, mostly the only reason I had to knock off a star. This was primarily the emotional connection, or lack of, that I had with the characters. I was able to connect with Sean, which was good. However, I didn't feel the intensity and passion of his relationship with Natasha. I could tell he definitely cared about her, but I didn't feel invested in the relationship. I think the source of this problem was how the relationship was presented. Many times when a relationship is presented, we see the growth from their first meeting to their first kiss and so forth. However between Natasha and Sean, we skipped directly from their first date to her meeting his parents. Because we missed this crucial period of growth, it was really hard to emotionally feel the relationship and become invested in it. 

Other than this (and some minor grammatical errors), the book was really great and I do recommend it! 

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