Jason Walker is your average teenage kid--baseball star, a couple of best buddies, crush on the cute girl in his class. But everything changes when he falls into the mouth of a hippopotamus and is transported to another world. 
 Yes, that's what happens. It's so absurd that it's amazing. 
 While trying to find a way home, Jason learns about the evil emperor of the land, Lyrian, and is thrown into a quest to overthrow him. He meets Rachel, a fellow "Beyonder" (that is, people from outside Lyrian) and they go on a quest to discover a magical Word that can destroy the emperor. 
 It's not your average adventure story. Which is great, because I tend to find adventure stories dull. Sure, Jason & Rachel are roaming the land in search of this Word, but so many things happen along the way. The people they meet are really interesting--a race that can disassemble parts of their bodies; another that holds a seed in the back of their necks that can be planted upon their death, so they may return. It's wild and imaginative. And there are a few different twists that I would have never expected, which was torturous when I had to put the book down for the day. 
 World Without Heroes is marketed to middle-grade kids, but if you ask me it's teetering on the border of middle-grade and YA. Some of the subject matter is really deep. Loyalty, gluttony, torture; this is some serious stuff. Don't be put off by the recommended age bracket. Read it anyway. 
 And the sequel releases in 2012! This one ends in such a way that it would be impossible to not read book #2.