Insignia  - S.J. Kincaid
So, in the end, it turns out that Insignia is a pretty cool book. It totally reminds me of Harry Potter--but with teens attending a futuristic military school in a science fiction setting instead of a castle to learn magic in a fantasy setting.

The story is about Tom--the boy whose got the special "it" the military is looking for, but who is raised by his deadbeet dad and will never have the opportunity to make anything of himself. His gaming skills are so good that he attracts the attention off the military, and he's recruited off to military school to fight in WWIII....but in war of the future, no one dies because the wars are fought in space over galactic real estate using space ships flown remotely by--yup, you guessed it--teenagers in military school.

Of course, there's MUCH more to the story than that, but I liked the surprises and unexpected bits--so I'll leave them foe you to discover. Ill just say that Tom gets much more than he bargined for when he joins military school. The writing shines during the dialogue between Tom and his new friends--their banter is laugh-out-loud funny. It seems a bit juvinile at times, and I felt frustrated because one page I thought the author was trying to make me cry and the next page she was trying to make me laugh. But in the end the story wrapped up nicely, and there is plenty of material for several more books....which Ill be keeping my eye out for.

Perfectly clean and suitable for all readers who are looking for some good fun science fiction!