Friday Book Report: Color Me Grey by J.C. Phelps

Published in 2004 by NewPub Binding, Color Me Grey by J.C. Phelps is a fun and humorous tale that chronicles the beginnings of Alexis Stanton’s adventurous new job. 

Alexis Stanton, known as Alex to her friends and family is a twenty-something that didn’t grow up with a normal childhood.  Homeschooled until college, Alex studied various different subjects and turned out to become a well-rounded young woman.  After excelling with general education courses, she studied computers and became a whiz; she practiced martial arts and self-defense, took etiquette classes and became proficient at rock-climbing.  Growing up this way, she became a woman with a desire for adventure and excitement but with little knowledge of the “real world.”  One morning she decides to quit her job as a data processor and look for something more thrilling.  What she finds is an obscure want-ad in the local paper looking for someone with specialized training for an exciting and highly paid position.  Intrigued by this mysterious ad, Alex decides on a whim to apply for the position.  Little did she know what she was really getting herself in to.

I really enjoyed this book.  The premise had me from the first page, and it continued to pull me in all the way through.  Alex Stanton is not your typical female protagonist and I really liked her character.  She grew up in a privileged home, and never had to want for anything.  Her parents let her live in the guest house and she still gets an allowance from Daddy.  Now, most times that sort of spoiled character would annoy me, but I got the opposite reaction from Alex Stanton.  Yes, she grew up in a rich household and still lives off Mommy and Daddy, but I think her naivety of the real world is what sets her apart.  She was homeschooled and didn’t venture into the “real world” until college, and for most of the book she’s still trying to understand who she is and what she wants from life.  That characteristic made her more believable and a lot more likeable.  She may have grown up spoiled, but she has this ignorance about her that me as a reader found endearing.  She grew up learning all kinds of special skills in unusual fields, and while she can come across as cocky in spots, for the most part she’s vulnerable and still has self-doubts.  So while in most ways she’s pretty much perfect, it’s those character flaws that make her character so likeable.

This book reminded me a lot of the television series “Alias” and I loved that series.  It’s probably my most favorite television series of all time, and most likely always will be.  Alex Stanton is a strong and very capable young woman determined to fit in and succeed in a man’s world.  She does not want to fail around all her male co-workers, and I thought that the determination of Alex was an awful lot like the character of Sydney Bristow in “Alias.”  For those unfamiliar with “Alias” (shame on you, you should watch it!) it’s also a lot like “James Bond” for women.  White & Associates (the company Alex applies for) is a private military corporation (PMC), doing reconnaissance and recovery missions for the government that the government cannot claim.  There’s a lot of spy-type action and thrills in this book, but mostly it’s about Alex Stanton and her journey of self-discovery.  She does a lot of this while training for her new job, and she comes away with a new sense of herself, and a few more skills as well.

The only thing I’d really caution another reader on is the first person narrative this book is written in.  It’s all told in Alex’s point of view, and at times it can get a little exhausting reading it this way.  It’s very narrative driven, like she’s writing it down in her journal.  There isn’t much dialogue to be had, and a lot of the sentences are short and concise.  I think Phelps could’ve got more depth out of the other characters if she wrote in the third person, but then again, this is the first book in the series and this story is about Alex, so I can understand it being in her point of view.  There is also a lot of time spent on her training that can get a little dull in spots, and I thought a lot of the sections dealing with her extensive training weren’t needed.  I wished the actual missions were more developed instead.  I felt the last mission was real abrupt and I wanted more depth and explanation than what we got. 

Overall I give this book a B+ grade.  It’s not the best written book in the world, but it’s fun and the character of Alex is great.  Her interaction with all the other men is fun and humorous and I really enjoyed watching her character grow from beginning to the end of this book.  It’s the first in the series, and I look forward to reading more about the adventures of Alex Stanton.  Anyone that enjoys a strong and capable female lead with a little bit of action and adventure mixed in will probably enjoy this book as well.