The Angel Factory

I never do back to back reviews because I usually have something or the other going on that same day or the next day. But I finished my homework early, practiced my instrument and currently have nothing to do. So why not write another review? It's better than many of the other things I would've done.
This book reminds me of a movie I started to watch (but stopped because it was getting too weird and too hard to understand) a week or so ago. It's a drama about an alien coming to Earth from outer space to observe humans. He finds it very hard to get accustomed to his new life of being human because it's so different from his regular life. But it is his job to report back to his planet whether this race of beings is worth becoming friends with or not. And his observations are so much like what a child would think that everyone thinks that he's insane. That's immediately what I thought of while reading this.

The cover-

Thomas Wisdom is one of the normal kids. He gets good grades at school, is pretty popular and has a loving and supportive family. What could ever go wrong with his life?

When he and his best friend Gip find a suspicious looking file on Thomas' father's computer and send it away to their deranged math teacher to decode, Thomas learns about things that he would never have known any other way.

He's actually an adopted son and his mother is still alive. This sends him out on a quest to find her and understand who he really is.

But at home, things are getting tense. When Thomas follows his parents to a strange building to see where they work, he gets thrown the weirdest curveball ever. His parents and many others in his community are "Angels", humanoid robots designed to help keep humanity on the path to peace and justice for all. They adopted him because it was their duty to acquire a human child and teach him how to be a good person.

Now the choice has come to Thomas. Should he play along with the Project like a good boy or rebel and get the life he wanted?

My thoughts-

This book did a very good job of actually making me like the unexpected plot twist. Usually I've had problems with books that throw the weird plot twist in. That's just because it makes a lot less sense once you and the main character are caught up with everything. 

Once Thomas found out where his mother was and that he was adopted, it was only natural that he'd try to find her. And also, he wasn't sure whether to believe that his "parents" were aliens or not. It took him half of the book to make up his mind on whether he would follow Gip and become his true self or follow the Project and help the weird aliens in making sure that no more humans fight.

What I found weird was that there was no clear cut ending. It just ended with Thomas seeing Gip deactivate himself (because he actually was an angel used as the demon on his shoulder) and feeling depressed because he lost his best friend. And then Thomas just moved on. The End.

He also didn't really make a clear cut decision on whether he was going to join the Project or not. He kind of wavered in both directions. For a time he said he'd join it and then later he said that he was never going to join it even if they forced him to.

But the story was very interesting and Thomas was an incredibly likeable  main character because we've all felt like he has. That the grass is always greener on the other side when we just ignore all the things that we have good that we take for granted.

((Next up will be my first ever non-fiction review! I've never done it before, so don't blame me if the style is bad and a little confusing. But I'm taking new strides and that's awesome! Happy Reading!))