Young Writers Society

Huh, what are the odds that when I finally get around to write a little review on this book, I find a thread near the top of the list talking about how they love James Patterson? What a coincidence.

Anyway, I personally enjoyed the first book of the series, and have been trying to read the second one. I'm waiting for it to come out in paperback before I buy it and it's always out at the library. There were a couple things that got to moe in this book, but hey, nothing's perfect.

The intro didn't exactly grab my attention. I felt it was a tad cliched, but it didn't put me off either. The next thing I noticed was the length of the chapters. Though it irked me at first, I settleed down into it and got used to it. The book is 413 pages long, with a prologue, 134 chapters, and an epilogue. So, most of the chapters are pretty short, one being only about half a page in length. I felt that was rediculous.

The story starts out pretty calm and easy going, but that gets shattered pretty quickly, and the story takes off from there. Patterson switches from first person narrative, through the character Max, to using third person for the others well. As for the characters themselves, I only had a problem with how he handled the character Fang. He likes to use the words "almost" and "slightly" when describing his actions. Things like "slightly raised an eyebrow" and "almost smiled". From what I remember, he does this a lot. As for the others, they all seem believable to me, and I enjoyed how Max told her story. It really brings out who she is all the way through.

Plot wise, it was pretty solid as far as I remember. The only thing I had a hard time visualizing is how a six and a half foot wing could fold up along half of your back. Aparently their wings have more joints than regular bird wings. There were a lot of cute remarks made by Max in there that really breathed life into the peice, especially her remark on how to hot wire a car. That one was nice. The fact that they're all just kids, ages six to fourteen, stays all the way, and it really shows when the action takes necessary slow downs. Very well writen as far as I'm concerned.

Another interesting note is how he has a whole website up that continues the story has though it were happening in real life. As to the series as a whole, I'd personally like to see it reach at least three books, but with the fast pace that's set, I don't know if it can. But, with all the plot points and twists (which seem like they could be anything and Patterson could get away with it), who knows? Oh, and rumor has it that it may even be made into a movie. That could be interesting (if Hollywood doesn't kill it like so many other adaptations).

Well, I can't really go any deeper analytically or anything, so I think I'll just leave it at that. If anyone has anything else to add that I may not have of thought of, or any disagreements, feel free to post.

I really enjoyed this book as well. The beginning was, naturally, a tad cliche, but it didn't put me off so much from reading the rest. Personally, I found Max's narrative a little tiring; I kept wanting to jump back into third person. I don't know, maybe that's just my style. One thing that really, really annoyed me though were all the little writing mistakes that just seemed to pile up (again, mostly in Max's first person). Like "bloodthirsty hounds of hell out for our blood." *gag* Maybe I'm just oversensitive, and I know first person has got to be a little more lienient with stuff like this, but seriously. I did enjoy it, but it's deffinately not in the top twenty percent of books I've read.