I cannot live without books.
-Thomas Jefferson
*Sigh* Whenever I finish a good book part of me dies a little, until I pick up the next one. Just when my life starts feeling hollow and emotionless, my best(school) friend, Jadon, decides to lend me a new book, and it was just what the doctor ordered. It is actually a series of five books(so far), titled Maximum Ride, by James Patterson, and let me tell you, they are phenomenal. Nothing else makes me feel in love one moment, extreme pity the next, then laughter then horror then sorrow then adrenaline then back to love, besides a good book.
Is it bad that good books practically
aremy emotions?
I swear, they are like a drug.
Brief overview of the plot line:
Set in today's world, there are six kids, Angel(6), The Gasman(8), Nudge(11), Iggy(14), Fang(14), and Maximum "Max" Ride(14). Max is the acting leader of the group of kids, who were all orphaned after they escaped from the School four years ago. These kids, though, they're not like the rest of us, and the School isn't a school. It's a genetic mutations lab. The "flock" of kids were all sent to the School as infants (by rather heinous ways), where their DNA was spliced with Avian DNA. As a result, the kids have air sacs in their bodies, hollow bones, high recovery stats, high heart rates, and...drum roll please...a wingspan of at least 10 feet. Once helped by the mutinous Jeb, a former lab worker, they find themselves suddenly all alone and being attacked on every side by Erasers. Erasers are mere children that raced into adulthood due to having had their infant DNA replaced with Lupine DNA. Yeah, that's right. Essentially, those poor kids are werewolves. Poor little Ari, a 7 year old boy and Jeb's son, has the body of a full grown wolf/man, the mind of a trained killer, and the heart of a little boy, whose father only ever loved the bird kids. One of the bird kids is taken by an Eraser back to the school, and by developing special gifts that seem to come along with the wings, the kids must go and rescue their little sibling, falling into numerous scrapes along the way, learning whom to trust and whom not to, and learning how tight the Flock's bond really is.
Patterson has done an exceptional job with this series, the first being The Angel Experiment. The story is told mostly from Max's first person perspective, but Patterson seamlessly switches to the third person point of view when the reader needs to know what happens to the other characters. Max is a believable character because she sounds just like my friends at school. The characters speak cleanly, but have a few quirks picked up from the flock's primary education: the television and the internet. Readers come to love the Flock, pity the enemy, and question where the lines of good and evil really lie. Each page has a question answered with three more questions. The series is full of action, mystery, slight romance, awe, dedication to the family, and, my favorite part, good clean fun. Emphasis on CLEAN. When a character swears, it is written out as, "The flock had a language lesson when Angel stubbed her toe and shouted some words that would have made a sailor blush" or "a slew of colorful words ran threw my head, but I restrained them." Granted, the characters do slip out a few words, but by the second book, I can count those instances on one hand.
The only other problem I can REALLY find with the series is the occasional lapse in information. Unless I missed the information (a rare occasion), I didn't know that Max is a girl until the eighth chapter. I didn't know Nudge is black until the second
book. I haven't caught anything else, but it's just like the author got so caught up in his characters that he forgot that we don't all see them as clearly as he does.
For all you Twilight fans out there, I think you will love Maximum Ride. The English is a bit better, and it's not as sappy, but still just as thrilling.
Enjoy!
