Book Reviews: Maximum Ride

Well, to be quite honest, as short as this book was, it took me forever to read. There's something about those short chapters that just makes me want to put the book down more often. I'm not entirely sure why it took me so long to read. It's not like the characters are irritating (in the first book, they start to wear on you by the second book). There's nothing wrong with the plot, though frankly it is kind of all over the place.

Plot

Not hard to figure out. It's about a group of genetically engineered kids who've escaped from the research facility where they were grafted with Avian DNA. They're kids with wings.

When the youngest, Angel, is kidnapped by the insidious Erasers, mutants with Lupine DNA grafted into them. In other words, they're werewolves. When Angel is kidnapped, the rest of hte group goes after her. Things happen, things go wrong, etc. Basically the plot reads like a movie, which can be a good or a bad thing. It's an easy, quick read, which makes it ideal for younger readers.

Characters

They're all very distinctive, which is another strength of the book. Each character is easy to tell apart from the others.

Max is the main character. This isn't a serious spoiler, but she's a girl. I didn't realize this until chapter 15! She's the leader of the Flock, and has a very strong maternal streak to her (this was evident earlier in the book, but for some reason her femaleness didn't register with me until it was flat out stated).

Fang is more or less the second in command. He's brooding and serious. Also, Emo.

Iggy is the third oldest of the kids. He's blind, and a genius with explosives. This combination scares me. He's also my favorite character (until book two).

There really isn't much I can say about Nudge. She's black, I bring this up because I didn't know this until I checked the wiki page. Patterson really should work on actually describing his characters.

Gasman apparently gets his name because he farts a lot. He does this all of once in the book. If a character is going to have a defining characteristic, it helps when it's mentioned more than a couple of times.

Angel is psychic, also far too young to have morals.


Writing Quality

It's very basic, and easy to read. Patterson is very sparse on his descriptions, which while it makes for an easy read, also leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Seriously, fifteen chapters before it's mentioned that Max is a girl! This makes the book ideal for younger readers, not so much for anyone older than twelve.

Ending

Very open. It basically screams, "Buy my next book!"

Buy/Don't Buy

This is a bit touch and go. I don't know how the series ends, but from what I've heard from a friend the ending is kind of lame. So really, buy it with the risk of getting into a series that might disappoint you.

Addendum

I would just like to say, that in the time it took me to write this review I read the second book. I'll just say this, it really isn't worth it. This book took me even longer to read than the first, and really didn't give me anything that was worth my time. Besides annoying me with the main characters and shoddy writing. Granted there were some pretty powerful moments, but in the end it all just felt manipulative.

If, for some reason, you still want to buy the books, buy them here:
The Angel Experiment (Maximum Ride, Book 1)
School's Out - Forever (Maximum Ride, Book 2)