The Blue Tower (Five Towers)

Intriguing, captivating the story flows such that you keep reading being drawn in causing loss of time in the real world.

While completely engaging (one of my 6th grade students is LOVING the series), the whole concept of a fantasy world that very closely parallels the concept of purgatory makes me pause. Characters in this world of Five Towers are former adults that are now being "scoured" in an afterlife. The other reason for pause are the flashbacks to life on earth as an adult. In The Red Tower (the second book), the MC remembers and feels the guilt for an affair he had. I haven't finished the whole series yet to see how everything plays out.

For a few years now, my oldest daughter and I have been reading the Harry Potter books. She loves them.When we first started reading The Blue Tower, we were about two-thirds of the way through Book Five of the Harry Potter series (The Order of the Phoenix). Our bedtime rhythm was we would read a chapter of The Blue Tower and then read a chapter of Harry Potter.A few weeks ago, we had just finished a chapter of The Blue Tower. I closed the book and said, "Ok, time for Harry Potter."My daughter, who is almost 8, said, "Daddy, tonight, can we just read another chapter of The Blue Tower?"I laughed, I smiled, and I knew at that point that J.B. Simmons had written something great. To capture a kid's attention away from The Order of the Phoenix? Come on!We're starting The Red Tower tomorrow . . .Bravo.

Something new to me in the fantasy realm. Engaging and intriguing story line. Be prepared to go on your on journey through the towers as you read. Looking forward to reading more in this series and other books by Mr. Simmons.It is classified as a YA book so adults may wiz right through it as I did. As I looked forward to book 2 in the series I found that I was not retaining details from this first book so did a re-read before moving on.

I really wanted to like this book. In fact, I decided to read the entire series before making a final decision. The book had alot of good things going for it; it had great adventure, good character development, really neat interconnecting story lines between the characters. But the biggest turn off for me was the tie ins to religion. I'm a Christian, and this book completely misrepresents the Gospel of grace. I know it is fiction, but I just couldn't get over that aspect of the series.

I have an advanced 12-year-old reader. He’s pretty picky about his taste in books. He read this in one night- not because it was below his reading level, but he got so into it he forgot to sleep!

This was a gift, she loved it and purchased the whole series

I purchased this book for my 14-year-old son who loves to read Science Fiction and Fantasy books. I tried to find one that was age appropriate without it being so easily read. I struck gold with this book. When I came across it on Amazon, I was able to read a sample and also loads of reviews and promptly ordered it. My son had it for weeks until he finally read it as he was occupied by his many electronics. After finishing the book within 2 days, my son asked me to purchase the remaining books in the series, which I gladly did.