The Other Me

The One #1

by J. Manoa

Odin Lewis has always known he is different from everyone else: he can levitate objects, look into the past, and learn things no one else can. Now, approaching his seventeenth birthday, Odin's life is changed when his old friend Wendell returns. Trouble is, Wendell isn't real, he's an imaginary friend absent since Odin was still a child. Wendell brings with him secrets both powerful and disturbing. Under Wendell's influence, Odin begins to question everything he thought he knew about himself, his family, his friends, and his entire life, while slowly learning more about his powers.

Genres: Young Adult

216 pages, Library Binding

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Maddy Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personal Response:
The Other Me was a very relatable book, minus the fact of super powers. Connecting with Odin was really easy being a teenage myself. Parents staring and watching your every move? Check. Friend issues? Check. Bullies? Well, I've managed to avoid this one but I can still really relate to Odin.

Plot Summary:
Odin Lewis is your average Junior in high school. A group of friends. A hardcore crush on some girl and even a bully. Life fulfilled. But Odin is not your normal teen in terms of ability. Odin has what we call telekinesis, where he can move objects. He can also look into someone's memory and just a small amount into the future. As Odin gets bullied, his "imaginary" friend returns. Wendell(the "imaginary" friend) tells Odin he can overpower everyone. Even rule the world. Odin has to decide if Wendall is right in terms of life or if being even a little more human is better than control.

Characterization:
Odin Lewis: Odin, in the beginning of The Other Me, is a very self aware and cocky boy. The basics of being a teenager. For the duration of the book, Odin learns to be a bit more humble, and responsibility for his actions.

Recommendation:
I recommend The Other Me for anyone in the middle to high school age. The is no gore besides when Odin throws his bag at Kevin. The ease of reading this book was too simple for anyone older.

[Anabel kamenske · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personal Response:
I like this book because it was an easy read. The plot was a little hard to understand at times. I could never tell what was going to happen in the book, which I liked.

Plot Summary:
The book starts out with a boy named Odin. He has special powers that no one else has. Odin can read other people's mind, see as far in the past as he wants, and he makes things levitate. halfway through his book his “imaginary” friend, Wendell, returns to him and helps teach him how to steadily grow his powers stronger. Wendell shows Odin what happened to his parents and that his adoptive parents are really just agents to help make sure that he doesn’t use his powers.

Characterization:
Odin at the beginning of the book was very shy. He wouldn’t talk to many people and kept to himself. He let himself get picked on by Kevin and believed his powers were evil and should not be used for his personal needs. Toward the end of the book, Odin became more outgoing and stood up to Kevin. He started to use his powers only when he had to.

Recommendations:
I recommend this book to anyone who likes fantasy and magical powers. This book is a good read for any teenager. Other books a person might like are Cress or Gone.

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personal response
What I thought of The Other Me was how much and how little I could relate to Odin.
With how Odin was strange and had his own way of doing things. I thought the book could do better with how it managed its side characters.

Plot
In the book The Other Me, Odin goes through high school with the ability to see the past of anyone he focuses on and can levitate objects. Odin doesn't understand why he can do this. Odin is a fairly normal kid in high school. He has high grades and spends most of his time with his face in books and hangs out with a group of friends. When Odin reaches his 17th birthday, his imaginary friend, Wendell, returns with the purpose of making Odin realize his true power while causing Odin question his friends, family and his entire life. Wendell constantly temps Odin into using his powers.

Characterization
Odin was a diligent intellectual who tried to fit in and avoid bullies while trying to understand his purpose. Kevin was an ex-friend of Odin who started to bully Odin after he found out about Wendell. Evelyn is Odin’s love interest. Wendell is Odin’s inner voice that helps him learn his powers but tries to turn him against humanity. Wendell is a strange entity that looks similar to Odin but holds no love for life and tries to make Odin use the full extent of his power.

Impact of setting
The setting is in modern time in an unnamed high school in an unspecified town. With the setting being in a high school, many of the kids only care about popularity, hiding things, and spreading rumors like wildfire. For the most part, if the kids were younger they wouldn’t care as much about popularity and adults tend to grow out of it.
Thematic connection
The main theme is faith vs doubt. This theme is shown with Odin’s ability to see the past, making him doubt his entire life. A minor theme is an empowerment this is seen in Odin as Wendell helps him learn his powers while showing the flaws in being a normal human.

Recommendation
I would recommend this to boys and girls in high school because of the possible similarities between them and Odin. I do not recommend this to anyone under the age of 16 due to context involving violence, vulgarities, and sexual acts. This book is high school reading level.

[Mason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personal Response: I liked this book because it had a lot of fiction in the terms of a person could look into the past and levitate objects. The main character really spoke to me and the author did not baby the readers with childish words.

Plot: The book also tells how a socially awkward kid is really powerful and even though he is bullied it did not really affect him. In the book the story starts off in a high school. The main character's name is Odin. The book starts off when Odin starts by talking about his science class teacher and how the teacher repeats the same test questions year after year. When the class is dismissed and he is in the hall his complete jerk (but once friend) Kevin bumps into him and calls him "Oddin", that's when Kevin punches Odin for no reason. At lunch Odin is talking to his friends about some online game. He then talks about the girl of his dreams and what she does. At home Odin is eating dinner listening to his step-brother about how a teacher sat on gum and the class got yelled at. when he is in room Odin hears a voice and looks around his room but he finds nothing, that's when he hears the voice again and asks who it is and the voice responds. Odin recognizes the voice and it's his imaginary friend Wendell, who isn't imaginary. After they talk a bit Odin goes back to levitating his text book to skim faster. That's when they started talking about when Kevin came to school the first day and Odin helped him out. Towards the middle of the story Wendell starts to give encouragement for Odin and his powers of telepathy and levitating abilities. Toward the end of the story Odin gets in a fight with Kevin and hits him with his book bag and knocks Kevin to the ground.

Characterization: The main character Odin shows a lot of growth towards the end of the book. In the beginning of the book he was super shy and now towards the end of the book his invisible friend shows him true power and he beats up his old friend turned nemesis. He also talks to the girl he has a crush on.

Recommendation: I would recommend this book to any one who likes to read about people who have super powers and does not mind reading swear words. This is because it shows a certain maturity to a reader.

[Debara Zeller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rate this 3 1/2 stars, which according to my scale is pretty good (I give very few 4s and 5s). I know the author and helped edit this series of books, and I knew even with the first draft that it was going to be a compelling story with a fascinating character. I see Odin Lewis as embodying a combination of Holden Caulfield's vulnerable, bewildered adolescence; Paul Atreides's "terrible purpose"; and Carrie's angry telekinesis. I'll definitely read the remaining books in the series, though I plan to wait until they're at a reduced price.

Note: J. Manoa named a character after me (Mr. Zeller, the physics teacher)!

[Daniel Jun Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully imagined YA series that is every bit as engrossing as 'The Hunger Games' or 'Divergent' series. But it has an edge of sophistication over other series in its sci-fi conception and elements of conflict, and it explores more complex issues of power than the average series. This is highly recommended reading for adult and young adult readers alike.

See the full review of this title at at Pop Mythology

[Steve Center · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the dark turn the book took.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the start, this YA series is promising - it's written very visually (i.e. you can see the "movie" playing in your mind), the characters are rounded, and the ending keeps you hooked to find out more.

You follow what appears to be an ordinary highschooler, but turns out to not have such an ordinary life. Filled with action and intruigue, Odin sets on a path to discover who he really is... and discovers he may not be ready for all of it after all...

If you know anyone who loves YA, fiction/sci-fi, I highly recommend getting them this one. I will be buying a set for my friend's daughter, and continuously recommend J. Manoa's work to others!

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel deals with the aspects of time travel, physics, and imagination in the somewhat repressive, if mostly ordinary life of sixteen year old Odin Lewis. To outsiders Odin may appear to be an overly-bright, bowling loving teenager; but in reality he hides a secret about his own extraordinary abilities. For Odin, the past is revealed in a mere thought allowing him to remember each moment in the day of himself and to see those of other people. He additionally possesses the ability to learn any fact or information with a mere thought and makes very small objects float. As Odin approaches his seventeenth birthday, however, things begin to change. Problems with fellow classmates at school and a growing dissatisfaction with his home life usher in the return of an old, unexpected friend: Wendell. The return of Odin’s long-forgotten imaginary friend creates further problems in his life as he is encouraged by Wendell to use his powers more and distrust the motivation of family and friends. The novel concludes by leaving readers to question the purpose of Wendell’s existence and striving to determine whether his motives are good and if he really has Odin’s best interest at heart.

Although this book had a strong start, and is fairly well written, it suffers a little toward the end. The last fifty pages seem to dwindle to an obvious conclusion that is not terribly satisfactory and does not answer the questions concerning the reappearance of Wendell, or the long-term impact of his realizations about his past and family. Although it is entirely possible some of these questions are answered in the subsequent continuing novels in this series, at a mere 216 pages readers could be left somewhat unsatisfied. This book would benefit from a re-edit and possible combination with the second book in this series to probably create a more full reading experience. Additionally, this novel might not be appropriate for younger teen readers due to explicit language and sexually-oriented discussions.

While I enjoyed this book overall, especially the interesting scientific discussions concerning time travel, parallel universes, and other aspects of theoretical physics, I would probably enjoy it more with a re-edit.

[Gavin Rhoads · Rating 3 out of 5]

My opinion on my red dot book review is mediocre. I don’t think the book was super good but it was okay. The first thing I would like to talk about is the cliffhangers because there a bunch of them and personally I think that’s what makes it good. I feel all the characters rolls in the book were well played out. Each character played a big part in the book. If I had to rate the book 1/10 I would probably rate it a 6/10. There are many parts of the book called The One that teaches you things about like like morals. So my overall rate on this book would be good I don’t think I would read it again though.

[Chapter · Rating 2 out of 5]

S..l..o..w.. to develop and I think it is going to be hard for most teens to stay with but it gets interesting after about 1/3 into the novel.

[Bobby]

Name: Bobby Britz

Book title: The One: The Other Me

Personal Response: I liked the book. It interested me and it was my kind of book. It was a interesting book, if you like people with powers as much as I do.

Plot summary: There was a kid named Oden Lewis. When he was 3 he went unstable and killed his original parents and he doesn’t remember it at all. He has an imaginary friend named Wendell who is him in a different dimension. He tells Oden how to use his powers and teaches him.

Recommendations: I recommend this to males and females of the ages of 14-18 who like young adult books with people who have powers in it.