Rise of the Six

The Preston Six, Book 1

By: Matt Ryan

Narrated by: Jeff Hays

Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Joey Foust has no idea he's a wanted man, and his parents aim to keep it that way. They raised him as a normal boy in a small American town, hoping he and his friends don't discover what lies beyond. And for 18 years, they succeed.

Joey and his friends, the Preston Six, were all born on the same day but soon come to find they have much more in common than a simple birthdate. Details of their past are suspicious, and they are determined to figure out what their parents are hiding.

Small threads of new information are discovered, leading the Preston Six to venture in search for the truth. What they find pushes the boundaries of their beliefs. Now, they're forced to leave behind everything to face an unknown adversary who's been hunting for them since the day they were born.

They must rise as one or fall to enemy hands.

This book contains mild language and violence.

©2015 Matt Ryan (P)2016 Matt Ryan

Kid book

Kid book
This is for teenagers not adults, ok story line. Parallel worlds and transport ok

A fun ride

A fun sci-fi meets zombies type ride. The main characters were entertaining and the narrator was great.

Young adult Fantasy novel!

Rise of the Six
The Preston Six, Book 1
By: Matt Ryan
Narrated by: Jeff Hays
This young adult book is about six friends were all born on the same day. Their parents are all friends. Something happened that caused some of the six to lose one or both of their parents on a single night. No one will tell them. But on the night of their eighteenth birthdays, one of the boys gets a pair of guns and reminded to stay away from the woods.
Well, all the kids have some weapons. If you tell a curious kid to stay away from the woods, well, that is where they are going! That's when things get really crazy and literally out of this world!
I think young adults will enjoy this! Small spoiler, at one point there are zombies. Not on our world. But I am burnt out on zombies. The rest is good.
Jeff Hays can make any book better just by reading it. So if I had read this I probably wouldn't give it a high star rating but Jeff Has could make my grocery list sound exciting!
This is a fun story. Lots of imagination. The narrative made it pop!

searching for an identity

Any additional comments?

I've had Rise of the Six on my kindle forever, but had never gotten around to it. Then I noticed that Jeff Hays was the narrator for the audio version and decided that was a good a way to make sure I got around to it. My problem with Rise isn't Jeff's narrations. Once again he does an excellent job bringing an varied cast to life. My problem was with the story itself. Was it bad? No, not at all. My problem is that it didn't seem as if it knew what kind of book it wanted to be. I'm not adverse to authors mashing several genres together, in fact I often like it, but this one just seems to be trying too hard and in the end I got the sense that the book was having an identity crisis. Is it a sci-fi book, a fantasy, a superhero book, a YA romance (kind of odd are plenty of elements of a love triangle without all the characters in the love triangle actually being present for the majority of the book), a horror (zombies)? So many of the parts of the books made me think of different books/movies I've seen over the years, everything from Wizard of Oz to The Matrix. (of course I'm sure some people who've read it will totally disagree and wonder how I could think such things, but hey it's my review/my opinion.) IN the end I just couldn't get a good feel for what Matt Ryan was aiming for. It's interesting, and I'll admit a part of me would like to know what happens next, not enough that I'll be jumping into book 2 right away, but perhaps someday.

good concept, okay writing

Overall interesting story line, though some of the writing wasn't great. I will probably read the next book in the series