Okay, here's a book review from me! I just finished reading Arena by Karen Hancock, and it was really good! Oh! Great book! So here's my "official" review format:

Title: Arena
Author: Karen Hancock
Genre: Fantasy/Science Fiction
If It Were a Movie, It Would Be: PG-13
My Rating: 5 stars

Summary: Callie Hayes isn't quite sure what to do with her life. So when she hears of an opportunity to participate in a study which promises to "turn people's lives around," she decides it can't hurt. But when she ends up in an alien environment with only a few strangely shaped objects and a cryptic book for guides, she will have to struggle to survive. Callie must conquer her phobias as she discovers truths about faith, love, and obedience while negotiating the strange perils of the Arena.

Evaluation: The Arena is a place full of booby traps and teeming with science-fiction monsters, and very little is as it seems. Callie has to decide who and what to trust, and it seems as if such a decision faces her at every turn. Is the manual really the key to getting home, or merely another trap? If fourteen different people claim to be the way out, how can she know which one really is? Since the enemy is so skilled at deception, how can she know anything? Parts of the book can be very depressing, as Callie despairs of ever learning the truth. But once she does, it's an exhilarating feeling. The book may be a bit inappropriate for children--after all, the heroine is about 26, and I suspect that's probably the novel's target age. She faces some--well, 26-year-old issues. But all in all, a masterpiece.

It seems impossible, but this is Hancock's first novel. I believe I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed Eragon. The writing is more polished, the plot has so many turns to it, and there are so many layers of deeper meaning. Arena stands out in that there are real, applicable life lessons to be learned from it. But at the same time, it's immensely enjoyable. I reccommend it to anyone old enough for the content. Right now, I'm bugging my mom to read it faster so we can discuss it!