Reading Challenge Day 3: The Odd Thomas Series

I enjoy reading books that are with the intentions to have sequels. (Though this is limited to only with definite sequels; Women's Murder Club series, anyone?) You can invest with the characters, learn more about them and develop and mature along with them. With that, I have read a lot of series of books. But for Day 3 of the 30-Day Reading Challenge - "your favorite series", I choose Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas series.

The Odd Thomas series is planned to have seven books (six are already published) and it's about the titular character who can see dead people. By God, Odd tries his best to use his gift to help the lingering move on, however, the world is full of ambitions and many evils that, no matter how he keeps his life simple, Odd is simply pulled into the darkness of humanity.

Yep, it's more of a traditional good vs. evil stories but what makes Odd Thomas special for me is his wry humor, making the best out of dangerous situations he is in. And I guess it helps that he and I has the same philosophies in life (e.g. In one instance, Odd believed that God is optimistic about humanity no matter how evil many had become. Because, if He wasn't, He could have wiped us all up and started all over again. Whatta dude!).

Every book is also filled with colorful characters. Though secondary only to Odd, Koontz's invests many pages for each character that they are drawn full of life and personality. Which pays off greatly.

There is a movie coming out based on the first book, Odd Thomas, and needless to say, I am very very excited. (A shame they are going through some disputes with marketing.) Koontz is very pleased with results and the trailer below looks very promising. Please please be good!




Runner ups:

• Percy Jackson and The Olympians - Percy's sarcasms greatly help
• Hannibal Lecter - Start with Red Dragon and you won't stop reading
• The Hunger Games trilogy - this defined the standards of YA novels, nuff said