by James Patterson
Imagine a teenager. Not just any teenager--a really annoying teenager with an attitude. Okay, any teenager. You know what? Better yet, picture yourself as a teenager. (This is easy for me to do). You're annoying. You're probably at about a 7.5 out of 10 annoyingness level, right? So much attitude that you're annoying yourself, right?
Good. Now multiply that number by one thousand six hundred and thirty two point five.
That is Maximum Ride.
A book about possibly the most rebellious teenager in existence (Max), and rife with a bunch of
others contending for the crown.
It's kind of fun to read, actually.
The adventurous, if not too original, plotline, features aforementioned teenager Max and her family, the Flock. Why the avian imagery? Well, the members of this particular family are 2% bird. Born in test tubes of recombinant DNA and raised (held captive) their whole lives by (who else?) mad/evil scientists, our heroes escaped their captors and (here's where the book starts) spend the rest of their lives running (ahem, flying) away to avoid recapture. Pretty crazy existence, right? And yet I suspect that most of us would put up with it if we had wings thrown into the deal.
So Max leads her jolly little band all over the world, and eventually the Internet, in this captivating (you see what I did there?) series.
Yes. All very awesome. And I enjoyed it very much, I daresay I can still enjoy it very much, yet after reading the third or fourth book I realized the following things:
1) It never ends. The story goes around and around and around so much that I lost track of how much tail-kicking of Erasers (the mad scientists' werewolf thugs) actually goes on. It's a lot.
2) It isn't a book.
I don't recall when I realized this, but when I did there was no going back. James Patterson doesn't write books. He writes action movies. You know those ones where the taking names never ends, and the sound bites that are thrown in between the action sequences are either banter or explosions? This is not a book series. It's a movie script writhing in its paper prison.
3) It's inconsistent. Wait...where did Fang get that laptop? Do we ever actually establish whether Jeb's a good guy, a traitor, a good guy pretending to be a traitor, or a bad guy pretending to be a traitor pretending to be a double agent? How does all this tie in? That sort of thing. Does Patterson even remember what he wrote in the last book?!
4) After the third book it just drags on...and on...saying the same things over and over. What is the Flock trying to accomplish, again? And the action gets less believable.
So. Good book series, but not amazing. Read the first three books if you like teenage sarcasm and action movies and want to fantasize about flying.
for: teenagers. Don't give it to your 10-12 year-olds. It will accelerate the annoyification process.
Content rating: 4/5 Definitely some swearing in there, especially as the series progresses. The teen angst gets more annoying too.
My enjoyment: starting out...probably 4/5
Imagine a teenager. Not just any teenager--a really annoying teenager with an attitude. Okay, any teenager. You know what? Better yet, picture yourself as a teenager. (This is easy for me to do). You're annoying. You're probably at about a 7.5 out of 10 annoyingness level, right? So much attitude that you're annoying yourself, right?
Good. Now multiply that number by one thousand six hundred and thirty two point five.
That is Maximum Ride.
A book about possibly the most rebellious teenager in existence (Max), and rife with a bunch of
others contending for the crown.
It's kind of fun to read, actually.
The adventurous, if not too original, plotline, features aforementioned teenager Max and her family, the Flock. Why the avian imagery? Well, the members of this particular family are 2% bird. Born in test tubes of recombinant DNA and raised (held captive) their whole lives by (who else?) mad/evil scientists, our heroes escaped their captors and (here's where the book starts) spend the rest of their lives running (ahem, flying) away to avoid recapture. Pretty crazy existence, right? And yet I suspect that most of us would put up with it if we had wings thrown into the deal.
So Max leads her jolly little band all over the world, and eventually the Internet, in this captivating (you see what I did there?) series.
Yes. All very awesome. And I enjoyed it very much, I daresay I can still enjoy it very much, yet after reading the third or fourth book I realized the following things:
1) It never ends. The story goes around and around and around so much that I lost track of how much tail-kicking of Erasers (the mad scientists' werewolf thugs) actually goes on. It's a lot.
2) It isn't a book.
I don't recall when I realized this, but when I did there was no going back. James Patterson doesn't write books. He writes action movies. You know those ones where the taking names never ends, and the sound bites that are thrown in between the action sequences are either banter or explosions? This is not a book series. It's a movie script writhing in its paper prison.
3) It's inconsistent. Wait...where did Fang get that laptop? Do we ever actually establish whether Jeb's a good guy, a traitor, a good guy pretending to be a traitor, or a bad guy pretending to be a traitor pretending to be a double agent? How does all this tie in? That sort of thing. Does Patterson even remember what he wrote in the last book?!
4) After the third book it just drags on...and on...saying the same things over and over. What is the Flock trying to accomplish, again? And the action gets less believable.
So. Good book series, but not amazing. Read the first three books if you like teenage sarcasm and action movies and want to fantasize about flying.
for: teenagers. Don't give it to your 10-12 year-olds. It will accelerate the annoyification process.
Content rating: 4/5 Definitely some swearing in there, especially as the series progresses. The teen angst gets more annoying too.
My enjoyment: starting out...probably 4/5
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