Sharkman
by Steve Alten, Andrew Eiden (Narrator)
I really loved this audible book! What a thrilling ride (or swim) all the way through! So much going on. The interpersonal dynamics of family, of friends, then his own feelings of being paralyzed, the hope of walking again, the changes he goes through, he is kidnapped...so much more...! Terrific story and well developed characters! Well thought out! Hope there will be another!
The narrator was terrific and performed great! ( )

From Amazon:
Kwan Wilson was a high school basketball star living in San Diego when a tragic accident changed his life in ways no one could predict. He only looked at his phone for a few seconds, but that was all the time it took to crash his car into a telephone pole, killing his mother and paralyzing him from the waist down. After the accident his father, Admiral Douglas Wilson, sent him off to live with his maternal grandmother in South Florida. Kwan’s new principal, anticipating his depression and isolation, tells him about an internship at a genetics lab in Miami that’s testing shark stem cells on rats in an effort to cure cancer and repair spinal injuries. Kwan declines—until he learns the beautiful Anya Patel is an intern at the lab. The good news is that the stem cells are curing their rat subjects; the bad news is it alters their DNA so much it kills them. When a promising breakthrough is made, Kwan risks his life and injects himself with the experimental stem cells—altering his destiny and the lives of millions in the process.

My Thoughts:

The idea of using shark DNA to cure illness or injury is intriguing, however I feel as if we are rushed through the story and Kwan's gullibility and indifference to logic even considering his age makes the character hard to believe. I did not find this book as engrossing as the Meg series. ( )

Sharkman by Steve Alten is a recommended book about a paralyzed teen who risks his life to walk again.

The plot of Sharkman is promising as it first introduces us to Kwan Wilson, a teen paralyzed from the waist down. The accident that inured Kwan, took his mother's life, which has left him bitter and angry. His father, The Admiral, has written him off, disowning him, and Kwan has had to move from San Diego to Florida to live with his grandmother. Kwan's grandmother spouts a lot of folk-wisdom and sayings that include sharks in them. Hmmmm...

After a horrible bad first day at the local high school, Kwan manages to make some connections that eventually result in his experimenting on himself with shark stem cells. Kwan not only regains the use of his legs, he becomes Sharkman - bigger, badder, and stronger than before. (I kept thinking of a sort of take-off on the incredible hulk.) The actual plot, concerns of the characters, etc. all point to this being a solid YA thriller and it might greatly appeal to YA readers interested in a different kind of superhero. For me this was a solid airplane book: interesting enough to pass the time but I'm not going to care if I misplace it.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Taylor Trade Publishing for review purposes. ( )

Kwan Wilson, a Korean-American high school student and former basketball player paralyzed in a car crash, gets an opportunity to intern in a lab doing research with shark stem cells that shows promise for healing spinal injuries. Circumstances cause him to use the treatment on himself, which heals him but causes unlikely (but unsurprising, given what's happened to the test rats) side effects and drags him into a shadowy conspiracy that was funding the research.

To be honest, I'm not sure why this book rubbed me the wrong way. Part of it was that the central science felt ludicrously implausible, in a bad silver-age comic book way, but I've been able to overlook similar flaws in other works (see, for example, silver-age comic books). Part of it was an accumulation of incorrect details, minor to the story and mostly not really a big deal (except for one*). Some of it was major details being blatantly wrong, the most noticeable being Kwan being allowed to play basketball after his spinal injury is cured despite the fact that it's known that human growth hormone was a major element of the cure. Poor writing decisions late in the book don't help (mid-chapter viewpoint shifts from first to third person to show events happening away from Kwan felt sloppy to me, one subplot is so irrelevant and unresolved that it feels like a blatant sequel hook, and a large part of the climax is confused enough to make following it awkward). A final factor is simply that the characters feel underdeveloped or unlikeable (one character behaved in a way that it amazed me that he hadn't been punched in the face by every other character he met, never mind that none of them did so).

* 9/11 WAS NOT A FALSE FLAG OPERATION, IT WAS AN INTELLIGENCE FAILURE THAT WAS OPPORTUNISTICALLY USED TO START AN UNRELATED PET WAR. Sorry about shouting, but that particular bit of idiocy really bugs me. ( )

I am a big fan of Mr Alten's previous works, particularly the MEG series but I enjoyed Sharkman even more. Couldn't put this one down as I became invested in Kwan's issues. Would recommend for anyone. ( )