This book is more of a 2.5 for me, but I'm rounding up in hopes the audiobook threw me off a bit. 
 While I should like The Alchemyst for it's American Gods-like concept of mythological figures from the Old World continuing to influence life in the States, I found myself lost in all the mythology. There are heaps of characters with unfamiliar (to me) names and each have different (often annoying) accents in the audiobook. Also, it's almost non-stop action: car crahses! beasts! explosions! zombies! destruction of place and time! Alcatraz! I found it fairly interminable. The characters I most likely would have found relateable or intriguing (Sopie and Scathach) ended up being annoying as they were voiced by a dude. If I try the second book in the series, I will seek out the hard copy.