Alex Unlimited, Vol. 1: The Vosarak Code [Paperback]

Dan Jolley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2007

Alexandra Benno has a unique talent: she can instantly summon parallel-dimension versions of herself. But these duplicates are always super-idealized: smart, fast, tough, and often the most beautiful girls in their world--while Alex herself is clumsy, frizzy-haired, and has the body of a twelve-year-old boy! So when the government recruits Alex for top-secret espionage work, it's always her idealized version who gets the action and, consequently, receives all the credit. Sick of being her own sidekick, will Alex be able to crack the Vosarak Code and complete her latest mission . . . or is she destined to live in her own shadow? With pluck and wonder at every turn, Dan Jolley’s smart and action-packed novel series takes the reader on one unforgettable adventure after the next.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: TOKYOPOP (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1427801223
• ISBN-13: 978-1427801227
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,897,997 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Must NOT Miss This!!!, May 21, 2007

By 

Clint W. McInnes "Concolor" (Greenwood, SC, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Alex Unlimited, Vol. 1: The Vosarak Code (Paperback)

Okay, the book jacket says: "Alexandra Benno can instantly summon parallel-dimension versions of herself, but these duplicates are always super-idealized: smart, fast, tough, and often the most beautiful girls in their world - while Alex herself is a clumsy, frizzy-haired wallflower. So when the government recruits Alex for top-secret espionage work, it's always her alternate who gets the action and, consequently, receives all the credit. Sick of being her own sidekick, will Alex be able to crack the Vosarak Code and complete her latest mission ... or is she destined to live in her own shadow?"

I got the book. I read the book. I read it again. I'll more than likely read it yet again during the coming week. It's just THAT much fun.

To say that the jacket blurb doesn't do the book justice is sort of like saying an industrial plasma torch gets warm. Alex is the most personable, most compelling, most REAL character it has been my privilege to get to know in quite a while. Comparisons with Charlotte Doyle or Stanley Yelnats spring to mind.

The villains are thrillingly and unabashedly evil, though of course they don't see it that way. Blaise Pascal once said, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." That could apply equally well in the case of the trio we meet in these pages.

Dan Jolley has a facility with getting inside his characters' heads that occasionally pulls a goofy grin across my face. I'll read an action sequence and watch how the character behaves and it'll hit me, "That's spot-on! Internally consistent! Believable!" How he managed to do that with an 18-year-old girl speaks volumes either for his imagination or his tenacious research ... or both.

Alex is a curious blend of strength and vulnerability, intelligence and naiveté; on the cusp of becoming an adult, but oddly ill-prepared for the trip. The reader can't help but love her. I have a daughter nearly her age, and I spent a good bit of the book in "daddy" mode, wanting to protect her, wishing there were SOME way I could HELP her. I wanted to bring her to a safe place, to try to let her know that it was going to be all right, that she was a better person than she knew. And the cool thing is that she arrived at those conclusions on her own.

This is a delicious read. Dan Jolley's descriptive prowess and droll turns of phrase are a delight. The action is paced perfectly, not TOO fast to begin with, as we get through the introductions, but soon building ... quickly, logically, as secrets come to light and connections develop. It all just makes so much SENSE it's spooky.

My suggestion would be for the reader to assure herself of sufficient time to devote to reading the last two-thirds of the book without stopping. If something interrupts your reading in that span, you will know the very measure of frustration until you can return to the tale.

Get the book. Read the book. You'll thank yourself.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Charming and Enjoyable, July 1, 2007

By 

Maja_S (AL, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alex Unlimited, Vol. 1: The Vosarak Code (Paperback)

This is the first volume in Dan Jolley's original series, 'Alex Unlimited.' It's a charmingly written story with a realistic and emotionally relatable main character. It's not full of age or genre jargon and is suitable for a wide audience. It's _most_ likely be appropriate for a 14-17 year old girl, considering that the book's strength is in representation of the heroine. It would also be enjoyed by a younger boy who enjoys youth-as-spy stories. The story reaches its stride in the middle of the volume, as both Alex's inner voice and physical actions become the focus of the reader's attention. Readers are left with a suitable cliffhanger and an ending with a lot of personality.

This is also the first prose novel published by Tokyo Pop. It's a fast read with short chapters, paced very similarly to an illustrated volume. In fact, it feels very similar to a 'youth-as-spy' genre cartoon with a slightly more mature bent. I would recommend the book to anyone above 14 who liked secret identity stories.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book!, February 7, 2008

By 

Michael Broadwater - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Alex Unlimited, Vol. 1: The Vosarak Code (Paperback)

My wife and I bought a copy of the first Alex Unlimited novel about a month back for our niece. She's not a big reader and we were trying to get her interested in the activity. The cover caught our eye it sounded like the kind of thing she would enjoy, but we weren't sure. We checked some of Dan Jolley's other work and saw he had also worked on the manga for "The Warriors", a series we heard was popular with children our nieces age. We ordered it and sent it off, hoping for the best, and that's exactly what happened. She loved it! We've gotten several emails from her exclaiming how much she loves the book and can't wait to read the rest. We'll be getting those for her very soon!