I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

This is the first in a series. There's a movie of this book as well.

The story of an alien boy hiding on earth from the other aliens that have destroyed his planet and now seek to destroy him....was introduced in the front third of this book. And it's a good one. I was hooked from the beginning. John Smith, the current name of our alien 15-year-old, is hiding out with his guardian in the little town of Paradise, Ohio. He's number 4 on his hunters' hit list and numbers 1-3 are already dead. He's waiting for his supernatural powers to arrive.

The middle of this book was a little slow; the reader has to wade through a whole bunch of teenage drama and romance, etc etc. That part kind of turned me off. But then, finally, at the end of the book we have the tremendous battle that just gripped me until the book was finished. Wow. So now I am eager to read the next book in the series.

There IS a lot of teenage making out. That's my least favorite thing in these YA novels and it seemed a bit out of place in this book.  The story of John's relationship with his girlfriend really slowed down the action. I also felt it was just a little contrived. Here's our boy, hiding out to save his life and probably to save earth as well, and he's defying his guardian so that he can be with his girlfriend. Hm. There is also a moderate amount of swearing.

But! If you can make it through the hormone soaked middle, the end is exciting. This looks like it's going to be a very cool series of books. On to The Power of Six!