Inspirations

In order to write a novel, you must be inspired to create one. Inspiration can take minutes, weeks, months, or even years to come by. Many authors have great, honorable, and even weird inspirations to start writing a book and that is good. Suzanne Collins's, author of The Hunger Games series, inspiration for her bestselling series, The Hunger Games, was the Vietnam War for example. The author she idolized the most was none other than Edgar Allen Poe. In fact, School Wars: The Prophecy of Light's author, Yaniss Chougui, has a kind of a great/weird inspiration for writing his debut novel. It came during his sophomore year of high school (Yes, Mr. Yaniss did publish his book when he was a teenager).  He was on his school's Track and Field team, in which he mostly ran long distance. One day during a mile warm up, he noticed something. He envisioned that he and his colleagues are part of a battle patrol, protecting the school from danger. This imagery later became the iconic trackers, who are sent to spy on other schools. The inspiration continued during the beginning of Yaniss's junior year. It was during Cross Country season. His fellow runners inspired the Sunset Shadows's tracker unit. On top of that, the football players were also an inspiration for Yaniss writing his novel. During a three mile race, the Varsity football team were still practicing when he imagined the football players being the popular soldiers in the military. Some of the pads even inspired the schools in Bellum's armor. The fictional school in School Wars: The Prophecy of Light, Sunset Shadows, is based on Yaniss's high school, Raymond S. Kellis. Most of the characters in the novel are based on Yaniss's friends from high school. The funny part is the main protagonist of the book, Danny Starlight, is based on the author himself. Yaniss finally decided to start writing his debut novel on September 2014. It was published on December 2015.

Overview

School Wars: The Prophecy of Light is a science-fiction/action/adventure novel. The novel starts with a bizarre and rhetorical question that makes everyone scratch their heads. The question is "What are schools?" Everyone would say, school is a place where kids can get an education. The author stated that response, but he adds a weird twist to his response, "what if it’s not?' This pretty much surprised everyone who read that section of the book. I think that the whole book tries to answer the "what if it’s not?" part of the response with its plot and characters. Overall, this book is phenomenal especially because it was Yaniss's first novel. He brings the book to life leaving everyone thinking about the future of war and education. They asked themselves "Can School Wars happen in real life due to war?" When I asked people about their opinion on this book, most of them answered "School Wars is like The Hunger Games and Divergent series had a baby and The Maze Runner and The 5th Wave series adopted it with Star Wars and Harry Potter being the godparents. It is that good." They also replied that they loved Danny Starlight and all of the other characters in the book, which made the book quite interesting. There is already one review on Amazon stating that "Best book ever! You feel the adventure from the beginning to the end of the book. It's worth reading! It's a book for everyone!" That is a good review. The plot of School Wars: The Prophecy of Light is unique in a good way. Like the review says you can feel the adventure from the beginning of the story to the end. You can really feel the character's feelings throughout the book especially from Danny Starlight (more on Danny later). Also, what I heard from some people is that School Wars: The Prophecy of Light has great potential to become a bestseller one day. The mood and theme shall be discussed later, but they help set the plot of the story. The story itself might seem cliché, but in reality it is not. The weapons, fear, characters, family, and structure of the book help give this book a bestselling potential. Hopefully, School Wars will become a bestseller because of its content and structure. I also have to admit that this book could become a hit movie one day. Potentially even destroying the box office.