SkyWake is a thrilling page-turner of a book, but at the same time modern and it feels unbelievably realistic. If I had to describe it in three words they would be thrilling, adventurous and perfect. It is the perfect book for someone like me who enjoys gaming and adventure there’s nowhere near enough books like these. When I finished the book, I was disappointed because I knew there was no more to read and I just wanted to keep on reading. I just couldn’t put it down. This should deservedly receive a 5 star review from anyone who reads it.
– B.F., Manor CE Academy

Although this isn’t a very original thing to say, I couldn’t put this book down.
It starts with a pre-chapter, which gives you a glimpse of the funny and highly relatable protagonist, Casey’s current situation. At the beginning, the book has a promising, easy premise but as you go on the plot thickens and you get a deeper understanding of the relationships between the characters. The
ending is brilliantly unique. I’ve never read one like it and definitely didn’t see it coming. The only thing I would have done to make the book 5 stars is to explore the lives of the other members of the Ghost Reapers outside of the invasion. Although, I wouldn’t change anything inside the book.
Furthermore, I think the book has great representation of both leading female protagonists, who are depicted in a ‘feminine’ way and disabled people. Overall, I love this book and would recommend it to anyone looking to binge-read an action book.
– Clara, Year 7, All Saints RC School

I have rated this book 5 stars because it was very enjoyable. This novel is filled with suspense and mystery and while reading it, I felt excited and worried at the same time. In my opinion, the book was easy to read and flowed well.
This story was about a 15 year old girl called Casey Henderson whose gaming name is Casey_Flow. She is great at playing the game SkyWake with her online teammates. However, at a live SkyWake tournament, she realizes that she is going to meet her teammates in real life but, they think she is a boy as while playing online, she has been using a voice changer! So how does Casey solve this problem? She gets her younger brother who is called Pete to pretend to be her. This causes problems resulting in Pete running away. But that is not the only problem Casey has to face, she now realizes that the SkyWake cosplayers are not cosplayers at all, but are real. This becomes a SkyWake invasion.
Throughout the book, Casey has to fight aliens and lead her team while on the lookout for her brother. Casey shows in the book what a fierce compassion she has to find her brother as she does all she can to find him, even if it meant risking her own life. I liked Casey’s character most of all in the novel as she is shown as strong and brave. She also has excellent leadership skills. Overall, I think this novel was full of action and very fun to read which is why I have decided to rate it five stars.
– Suhani, Year 7, All Saints RC School

I think that SkyWake has been seriously thought through, it connects modern technology to this book more than any other book I’ve read. One problem I always realise when I read a book that is supposed to be for younger children especially, other children as well though is that they can’t relate to things like the technology used in this book. SkyWake is exactly the opposite of that and by basing it on modern technology, more children should read it, because they can relate.
The wonderful thing in this book is the fact that one of the characters, Cheeze, is disabled, many books just have perfect characters with no struggles. This is a message to everyone, that even if you’re disabled than you can still do things.
– Christopher, Year 7, All Saints RC School

Not my usual type of book but I enjoyed it with both some humour and serious parts. It is one of the best books I have read.
– Prince, Year 7, Dixons Cottingley

This book comes with a seriously flashy entry. Casey saves her team just when it doesn’t look possible. However, because she was afraid to show she was a girl she was disqualified. Never be afraid to show your ‘true you’.  
Casey and co. are soon out of the frying pan and into the fire as things go from bad to worse. The “Red Eyes” are real and are taking over! The feeling of tension goes even higher. Jamie never gives her character a chance to breathe as they are thrown dramatically from one dilemma to another. The flashback with Casey and her dad are extremely powerful and very realistic. Though this book is fiction it feels like it could happen in real life. 
The only downside to this book was that the plot was quite predictable, hence it scored a strong 3 stars. 
– Toby, Year 7, All Saints RC School

The main characters were Casey, Pete and Casey’s SkyWake team (her online friends). Casey was quite nervous at first because she had told all her teammates she was a boy but they were meeting up, in person, for a competition. She didn’t want them to know she was a girl because they might treat her differently. Her little brother Pete runs aways because sometimes he gets mad at Casey as she got to do things he couldn’t. In my opinion the characters weren’t described very well and I couldn’t picture what they looked like. My favourite character was Casey because even when things got tough she helped her team and stayed strong. At one point Casey’s team doesn’t get along with her because they are annoyed that she lied to them. 
When Casey and Pete get to the competition Pete steps in and helps Casey so her team doesn’t realise she is a girl. After the game has finished they realise something strange has started happening and see drones flying around. The drones end up going outside to land and create a force field. The team soon find out that it’s just them and the other gamers that can help because nobody else can get in to stop the invasion. The story covered the day and all the events that happened. The events were very unusual because you wouldn’t expect an Alien invasion to happen. The beginning of the story was very interesting and I enjoyed the book a lot.  
I don’t feel like the story was important because it isn’t likely to happen in real life but it was definitely entertaining. Unlike the characters the setting was described with a lot of detail and I loved how some of the things were described. The characters’ feelings were very easy to see and I could clearly tell when Pete was upset. I think it was a good story because it was an interesting adventure and I always wondered what would happen next. My favourite part was when they were gaming because the suspense made you wonder who would win. If I changed the book I would probably just describe the characters in more detail. 
I don’t think the writer had a life changing reason to write the book but I’m glad they did because it is now one of my favourite books. I feel curious now that I have read it because it finished on a cliff-hanger. I would say this book is different from others I have read and I really enjoyed reading something different. I would 100% recommend this book because it was an amazing story. 
– Manor CE Academy

In the story a girl who loved to play a game called SkyWake and her brother went to a tournament and that is where things started to go wrong for the siblings. The story was about a girl who was scared of being judged, made some mistakes that could either save her life or end it. It covered a day but had some time skips which were memories of the girl’s life and lots of different sections were stretched out to make it more informative. What happened in the story was unusual and I don’t expect what happened in the book to happen in real life. The opening was dull and it was basically the start of a normal person’s life. The events in the story followed each other quite well apart from when the story switched POVs. 
The main characters were called Casey aka CASEY_FLOW, her brother Peter or Peter, her teammates CH33ZEMUNK3Y, aka Cheeze, FISH_HEAD_04 aka Fish, XxxEl1teSn1p3rxxX aka Elite and SPOCKS_BR@IN. Casey and Cheeze were the leaders, Fish was always in a bad mood, Elite was calm and laid back and Spock’s Brain was the oldest and was the smartest. They weren’t described in much detail because Casey did not know what much about them. I found Pete the most interesting because he looked up to his sister but at the same time wanted to be independent. Well Fish was angry at Casey for a bit so they had a kind of conflict for part of the story and the others were alright and had a good relationship with Casey and each other but Pete and Casey has some conflicts but then made up at the end. Fish became more open and Pete found out that if he leaves his sister sometimes things can go wrong. 
The story was written in third person, this was important because it makes you feel like a ghost following Casey around and writing down everything she does. The setting was described in quite a bit of detail because that was where most of the parts of the story took place. The feelings of Casey and Pete were described a lot but not for the others because the POV’s were just oc Casey and Pete. I think personally it was a good book but for others they would disagree so I think it is a good book but others might not. My favourite part of the story was when they all got into the pods that they thought would take them back to Earth but instead landed on a different planet. I think I would have liked more parts of Spock because he kind of disappeared in the middle. 
I think the writer loves video games so this is why they wrote this book so they can put their two passions together. Well the book did not really draw me into it and I sometimes got distracted from it and could not get back into it. I think that what I have learnt is that you can love and play a game for ages but you have to make sure what you’re playing is safe. This is not really a genre I read in often so I can’t really compare it to any other books I have read. I would recommend this book to people who like sci-fi and fiction because this is the perfect mix.  
– Manor CE Academy 

This book was unlike anything I would choose to read. However, the thrilling adventure completely gripped me. It was an exciting, fast-paced story, with creative characters and an imaginative plot. Throughout the whole read, I was desperate to discover the ending. This story was written so well that I was completely immersed in the book. I enjoyed the short stories that were dotted throughout the book and also the element of mystery that was woven into the plot, making this story even more compelling.
Although this book was full of mystery and anticipation, I thought that in some parts the description could be more precise, so that a clear image could really be planted in the reader’s mind. However, this book was a completely thrilling adventure, full of unexpected twists and turns. Reading this story has opened up an entirely different style of book for me, one that I would never have read before.
– S.S., Manor CE Academy

The book is full of detail however, I think there’s too much detail and it’s a bit unrealistic, meaning that a girl can’t play with her team in a big tournament because she won’t trust that her team will support her because she’s a girl.
The main character is called Casey, as I was reading the book I felt bored and wanted more action however, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen for a while. As soon as you open the book it’s filled with a perfect description of what the book has to offer and an amazing amount of action. I wish the book stayed like this the whole way through.
I would recommend the book for people who like an adventure game with a villain in. I feel as if someone could see the twist / plot coming from a chapter (or two) away.
– India, Year 8, All Saints RC School

SkyWake: Invasion is an amazing read about a 15-year old girl called Casey Henderson. Pete, Casey’s brother, dashes into the room as Casey sleeps, waking her for the big day, a SkyWake tournament: from there, the story thickens. Casey has been playing SkyWake for a year now, she’s got quite good by now in a clan called Ghost Reapers. Casey_Flow (her gaming name) is the leader of the clan, her teammates are: Fish, the tank with the energy shield; Cheeze, the hacker with laptop in hand; Elite, the sniper with the mad skillz, yo; Brain the medic with the meds at the ready. All the characters helped me to enjoy the story. They had emotions that weren’t blank faces for me to watch run around the pages. The characters were constantly thinking of a way to overcome the next challenge in an exciting, imaginative and engaging way.
The story follows the group completing a challenge in the mall of the SkyWake tournament, trying to finish and rescue everyone before the time runs out and the strange red-eyed “cosplayers” take everyone to a different planet.
The story was very easy to follow, it has an amazing way of guiding you around feelings of relief, happiness, sadness, grief and even the risky one of a death. I think the book should be aimed at 12 year-olds because it’s a grown-up set of characters who, especially Brain, can use complicated words I had to guess from context.
I honestly thought this book was an amazing, creative and incredible shot at creating a book to take people on a journey through a non-childish alien and space adventure. Will the ghost reapers be able to save everyone before time runs out? Or will they have to live with the truth for the rest of their lives? The first book of a trilogy awakens in SkyWake: Invasion and I would wholeheartedly recommend it. Remember, “Go with the Flow”…
– Robert, Year 7, St Peter’s 8-13

This is a really good book. It tells the story of a gamer whose favourite game comes to life and she has to work with her gaming group and younger brother. I really liked it because it kept me hooked until the last page, which was a cliff-hanger. The way the story was told makes me want to read the next books – and also to find out how it ends!
– Emily, Year 7, Bootham School

I really liked SkyWake: Invasion. Pete, Casey’s little brother, was very brave not only when going in Casey’s place but also when facing the Red Eyes (the villains) with Casey and the Ghost Reapers. I also like the surprise attack of the Red Eyes and I think the biggest twist is that SkyWake isn’t just a game, it’s a training simulation that would give the gamers skills to pilot a real Red Eye army. 
– Alex, Year 7, All Saints RC School 

I didn’t really like this book, since the character motives were confusing (mainly Fish); the story moved in and out so much that the plot felt jarring at times. 
I didn’t feel attached to Casey, especially since the focal point of her character problems is the unfair treatment of her gender, which is immediately swept away as soon as the plot called for the team to defeat the Red Eyes. The fact that she smoothed things out with Fish near the end didn’t convince me either. He was antagonistic to her throughout the book, and he just changes. His justification for feeling betrayed felt a little thin too. Most people know they shouldn’t trust people on the internet. 
The action is all very fast paced too; it’s hard to become interested in the flashbacks of Casey’s dad when the story starts speed running her blasting a hole in an alien or something. Oh and cheezing isn’t hacking – it’s playing something as fast as possible. 
I really like Pete though. When he left Xander (a character that got shelved very fast) it showed that he was genuinely scared for himself but also confused and angry that he let it happen, which is incredibly human. He’s very well written and that was his best scene (in my opinion). 
Overall, I quite like the premise of SkyWake and if there is a second book, I might read it. 
– Lilah, All Saints RC School 

The book was interesting. It pictured what life could be like if robots existed and took over the world in a way that is different from other robot books. It also made me think about the similarities between computer games and real life, and how they could interact with each other. It also had parts in it that people could relate to; it wasn’t just all made up. The book was good at making you feel tense and scared about what could happen next, but lacked descriptive language. It was really to do with action, so if you don’t like books with a lot of action in them, I wouldn’t suggest the book. The book was good, but slightly boring 
– Manor CE Academy 

Casey Henderson – Casey_Flow – is a master at the online shooter game sensation SkyWake. Casey has a team of boys, the GhostReapers, these people included XxxELITESNIP3RxxX, FISH_HEAD_04, SPOCKS_BR@IN and Cheeze. The team gets a VIP invite to join the Skywake competition when she arrives everything goes wrong. The game isn’t just a game… everything is real. Aliens are recruiting the best teams to fight. And Casey is one of them. Aliens have her brother, there is no stopping them now. 
This book was good but slightly too unrealistic for me. I still loved it as the way it is written is amazing! My favourite character is Casey because she is brave, confident and great at video games. All the characters were written to be great and I could relate to them unlike other books I’ve read where the characters are not like real people. Overall I think that it’s a good book and I would recommend it to people who like sci-fi and around the age of 8-12. 
– Manor CE Academy