Review of “Academy Bound” by J.C. Mastro (Paperback & Audiobook)

Score: 95+/100 (9.5+ out of 10)

Academy Bound is a tense, emotionally-charged, and thrilling science-fiction novel by J.C. Mastro! It is also a brilliant audiobook narrated by Fred Berman!

Eight years ago, a fierce and bloody war was fought between two powerful interstellar forces, the Earth System Alliance (AKA “The Alliance”) and the Independent Colony Worlds (ICW). In the midst of this, an Alliance commander named Kari Aurelian and her crew (including a younger Lt. Commander Briggs) undertook a perilous mission to steal ICW plans. This snowballed into a desperate attempt to destroy the ICW capital ship, the Invictus. In the chaos of the ensuing battle, Kari Aurelian went MIA with some believing her to have been a traitor and others a hero. A ceasefire and peace treaty was signed soon after, effectively putting a halt to the war. But what happened to Kari Aurelian and where did her true allegiances lie?

Idolizing his mother and believing her to have been a hero and possibly still alive, Zach Aurelian dreams of following in her footsteps to become a commander for the Alliance Fleet. He trains every day via virtual reality simulations (games) and works toward entering the Earth System Alliance Fleet Academy against his father's wishes. The heartbreak over his father's resistance is only the beginning of his trials and tribulations as he finds himself heavily opposed by the academy's headmaster, Commandant Trask, who was demoted from rear-admiral after what happened with Zach's mother eight years ago. Trask seeks every opportunity to trip up, penalize, and expel Zach, making him one of the primary antagonists of the book alongside the ICW. Zach also suffers from an anxiety disorder, likely caused by the loss of his mother, which causes him to overthink, hesitate, and become indecisive, something which Trask preys on.

He is also bullied and antagonized by another cadet named James, who serves as his rival.

And, to top it all off, we also learn that the academy is insanely competitive with many cadets failing to make it past the first year! The cadets endure multiple trials and tests, each of which could lead to their failure or expulsion. They must watch what they say, do, and even drink. The oppressive, prison-like atmosphere is ever-apparent.

This is an immensely personal story, which the first-person perspective perfectly facilitates.

Thankfully, Zach isn't alone. This book is full of colorful, deep, and interesting characters. There's Lt. Commander Briggs, Zach's mentor who knew his mother and was a friend of the family. Briggs is one of the coolest characters in the book. He's a badass, a hard ass, but he's also fair, especially in comparison to Trask. You can tell that even when he challenges and is hard on Zach, he's only doing it to teach and guide him. It's just tough love. Briggs also has an aura of mystery surrounding him, especially since he's one of the few people who knows what happened eight years ago. He kinda reminded us of Gill from Finding Nemo or Martin from The Oasis King by Mark David Pullen. He's just a really cool, calm, and collected character.

Next, there's Russell White (usually just called “Russ”), Zach's nerdy best friend who specializes in engineering, something which becomes crucial in the later sections. Russ truly shines in later sections of the book, but is greatly overshadowed by others like Sam and Briggs throughout most of it. At the very least, he comes across as a truly good and loyal friend. He shares a great friendship phrase with Zach: “Never leave your wingman.” He also has a somewhat sympathetic side-story in which he tried to make the academy's prestigious hoverball team in order to branch out from his social awkwardness and impress girls, however, was gravely disappointed. Anyone who has failed to make a sports team (or was cut) can empathize.

Next, there's Joel Nero, who we're often told is one of Zach's closest friends (probably after Russ and maybe Samantha). He is Zach's bunk mate and their parents apparently served together years ago. Really, the key time when Joel comes across as a great friend is when he realizes that him asking Samantha out might have hurt Zach. This really shows what a kind and considerate friend Joel is. He's one of those friends you'd love to keep around.

There's also the aforementioned bully/rival, James. James is kinda the Draco Malfoy of this book. Of all the characters, except for maybe Zach himself, James is probably the one who develops the most. When we first meet him, he's an absolute jerk. Over time, we actually realize that a lot of his jerkish attitude and behavior is inspired and encouraged by his terrible father, a major donor to the academy, and his “perfect brother.” As we learn more and more about James, James's father, and his brother (Chad), it's hard not to sympathize with James. It's also special to see his relationship with Zach grow and even blossom. They go from being rivals who can't stand the sight of each other to being teammates and eventually friends. It's one of the highlights of the book.

Speaking of highlights of the book, we now come to probably everyone's favorite character: Samantha Harriman (often just called Sam)! Sam is awesome. We could end it there, but let's dive deeper. First and foremost, Sam is a very likable and charismatic character. She is kind and caring, friendly, fair, empathetic, intelligent, and passionate. However, she's not a Mary Sue. There are times when she panics. There are times when she's frazzled. There are times when she doesn't get what she wants or things don't go according to plan for her.

Sam is the main love interest of Zach throughout the book, though not the only one. She is also one of his very best friends. She seems to know Zach better than he knows himself, even saying things like “I know you” and “I know you better than that.” Unlike some of the other characters, she is sensitive and attentive enough to recognize when Zach is feeling a certain way or thinking a certain thing. There are many key moments in this book when Zach is immensely crushed, disheartened, and disappointed, and Sam is there to let him know that she recognizes and understands how he feels. She is also capable of being a tough loving sisterly figure, like when she gets Zach to straighten up rather than being a hindrance to the group by being selfish and negative.

You can tell that Zach and Sam truly love each other, though it's iffy whether their love is romantic or just a very powerful friendship. There are a few other things about Sam that reveal more to an attentive audience. For example, when Sam is chosen as commanding officer of Crew 8 (the “Crazy 8”) over Zach, the audience immediately feels as disappointed as Zach. That's because we know how much being the commanding officer meant to Zach and how hard he worked for it. However, there are some subtle hints that being the commanding officer meant a lot to Sam too, however, her dreams and ambitions weren't force-fed to us like Zach's were. For example, during the school field-trip to the Dreadnought, Sam fan-girls over Captain Christina Alonso-Jarin, the female captain of the pride ship of the whole fleet. Why would she react with so much awe and admiration for this particular person? Well, the answer is simple: it's because she aspired to be in that role—to be a female captain. That point gets further hinted at when we learn that Samantha's father is actually the captain of a private ship, which plays a role in the teaser for book 2.

Lastly, there's Brianna, the other love interest of the book. This creates a bit of a love triangle in the book, though not an annoying one that dominates it and distracts from the cooler stuff happening. Brianna holds a great attraction to Zach, something which actually seems to annoy and scare him away. However, Brianna is a good person. She's not a snob or someone out to use Zach. So, in effect, we're actually left with two suitable choices for Zach: his good friend (Sam) and this good girl who genuinely likes him. Now, let's be honest, almost no one wanted Zach to end up with Brianna simply because Sam was such a great character and option. Sam is just too cool. She outshines Brianna in almost every way. However, something happened near the end of this book that really changed our minds about Brianna. We went from being annoyed with her to really feeling for her, similar to what happened with James. Brianna actually develops into an interesting and sympathetic character by the end of this book. She actually brought us to tears at one point!

No, she doesn't die (that would be cheap), but something happens that really elevates her in our hearts and minds.

This book gets very tense and emotional at times. There are moments in this book that made us want to shout and made us want to cry.

With that said, there are also moments in this book when the action and the narrative kinda hit a wall. A lot of the action and tension in this book actually isn't real, it's actually a simulation (virtual reality). For example, there are description of space battles, a collision with an asteroid, and other cool stuff, but none of it is actually happening, robbing these scenes of some of the immersion. With that said, however, these scenes aren't absent of weight or stakes, just less so than if they were real. For example, the simulation test has A LOT of stakes, albeit not life or death. The narrative makes it clear that any screw up or failure can get Zach and the Crazy 8 crew kicked out of school. To quote Hermione Granger from Harry Potter: “We could all have been killed — or worse, expelled."

Some fates are worse than death.

This book really makes it seem like being expelled is the worst thing that could happen to a cadet. They might as well be put on an ice shelf and left to die for being a complete and utter disgrace to society.

It's also kinda cool that the plot and conflicts of this book are built methodically and subtly. For example, we get a news report about a super weapon (a teleporter/wormhole machine) that may have been stolen by the ICW. Nothing is really made of it at the time, especially since that conflict seems to be in the background. We also learn a lot about Briggs and Zach's mom. More and more information is revealed to us over time. There are also subtle hints and foreshadowing like the way that other officers and people react to hearing Zach's last name.

We also love and admire that Zach isn't the only person who has a major story and not the only character who has wishes, dreams, desires, motivations, feelings, and emotions. Every character in this story seems to have a story of their own. Every character in this story seems like an actual, living individual. Even minor characters like Captain Christina Alonso-Jarin seem like real people. For example, Captain Christina Alonso-Jarin comes across as a rebel with pink lipgloss and her hair not perfectly in a bun. Like we said, James has a story that we weren't privy to earlier in the book (involving his dad and brother). Samantha has a story regarding her dad being a ship captain and a desire to be like Captain Alonso-Jarin. Russ has a story regarding his desire to be more than a nerdy kid, wanting to become an athlete (hoverball player) and desirable to women.

Zach's dad is a deep and emotional character who clearly loves his son and is protective of him. At the same time, he's also someone who wants to move on with his life and find greener pastures. He has endured tragedy after tragedy, trauma after trauma. You can hear it in the voice of the audiobook narrator. In fact, his parts are some of the best and most powerful parts of the audiobook.

We could go on and on.

Heck, even Giles the PAI (personal artificial intelligence), has an arc in which he becomes increasingly respected and useful throughout the book. You could make a similar argument for Quark, Russ's PAI.

That's something we respect.

Now let's briefly talk about Zach, the main character himself. There are times Zach annoyed and angered us. There are also times when Zach inspired and compelled us. He's a dynamic character, which is great.

He starts this book as incredibly self-centered and selfish. For example, when his dad expresses wanting to meet a new girlfriend and start a new life, Zach becomes incredibly angry and upset, largely because he's protective of his mom's memory (and the hope of her return) and partly that he's immature and selfish. He can't bear to see his dad happy if he's not happy. He can't bear to see his dad happy without him or his mom. That really highlights his immaturity early in the book.

He becomes jealous and angry when he learns that Joel asked Samantha to the end of the year dance, even after being asked by Brianna and agreeing to go with her. Although we can somewhat sympathize with the way he feels, it's also rather jerkish and selfish. We've known people in school who wouldn't “allow” schoolmates to date certain people, as if they're entitled to them or have marked their territory.

Zach also becomes jealous when Samantha is chosen as squad commander/commanding officer over him, even though Sam has always supported and been kind to him. Zach behaves rather reprehensibly and selfishly.

On that note, he almost completely ignores the sadness and disappointment that his best friend Russ feels upon not making hoveball team because of not being chosen to command. That's also admittedly a funny scene because it interrupts the final announcement in a humorously anticlimactic way.

What else did we like? Well, there was a lot of tension in scenes like when Zach had to meet with Commandant Trask and Lt. Commander Briggs in the span of about 1-2 hours, both of these men offering to provide devastating news to Zach. The final action scene was truly tense, incredible, and even emotional. Scratch that, it was VERY emotional.

We also loved descriptions like the one about the asteroid field and how it interacted with the sunlight. The world-building was pretty cool. Characters often say “hack” instead of another curse word. There's a real sense of wonder and adventure.

So, how is the audiobook? It's awesome. Heck, it may even be better than the paperback! The audiobook is narrated by Fred Berman.

Berman did a really admirable job, especially at portraying so many different, unique characters! He really nails Brigg's strong, bold, authoritative, cool voice. He also nails Giles's posh butler voice and Quark's robotic voice.

Some of the other characters sound a little stock and stereotypical, but they're good too. James sounds like a brooding, dopey, finger-pointing bully. You can almost imagine him saying, “Ha-HA!” like Nelson from The Simpsons. Russ kinda sounds like a stereotypical, glasses-wearing geek who desperately needs an inhaler. Joel sounds like Billy & Ted at times, like some surfer dude.

Trask's voice is both awesome and hilarious. We have notes about him sounding like a “pissed off pirate” sometimes and like Tywin Lannister (from Game of Thrones) at other times.

Many of the instructors have posh, British accents.

Captain Christina Alonso-Jarin has a Spanish accent and is actually the best-sounding female voice that Berman does.

Speaking of female voices... that's something that didn't always jive with us. Some of Berman's female voices are hilarious and comical, though you can't fault the guy for trying. It wasn't for a lack of effort.

What's kinda funny is that Sam is supposed to sound like a strong, independent, yet caring girl. However, she often sounds like KrimsonRogue voicing Empress Theresa. But she's not the worst one. The worst one is far and away Brianna. Brianna almost sounds like a cross between a valley girl and a snobbish high school cheerleader. That might work if she were actually intended to be a flakey, snobbish character, but 1. She's not flakey or snobbish, 2. We're reminded time and time again how kind and good of a person she is. So, why does Brianna sound like this?

Well, because Berman was trying his best to imitate what a young adult girl might sound like, just with a lot more testosterone and bass.

Now, while that's kinda funny, it actually didn't really detract from the entertainment of the audiobook. Again, Sam still came across as an awesome character despite sounding like a middle-aged dude trying to sound young and feminine. Also, it's actually really fun to hear the voices of Sam and Brianna clash with some of the others like James, Joel, Russ, and Zach.

Speaking of Zach, his voice is almost perfect. Rather than sounding like a young, weak, timid, and whiny teenager, he sounds like a young, aspiring, strong, and bright male. Berman is actually great at making Zach portray a range of emotions from anxiety, fear, apprehension, ambition, jealousy, and—perhaps best of all—sadness.

Zach is growing throughout the book. Like we said, he begins the book being very immature, very insecure, and very jealous. However, he progressively becomes more mature, more confident, and less jealous. He also becomes much more empathetic. There's a scene in which Zach has been bombarded by two heartbreaking, nerve-wrecking moments, then finds that James is having a hard time of his own. Rather than making it all about him and his problems (like he used to), Zach shows empathy to James, his old rival.

This is an excellent book!

Check it out on Amazon!