Genre: Young Adult,
Science Fiction
Publication
Date: May 29th 2007
Pages: 405
Published By:
Little,
Brown and Company
My Review Copy: Audiobook borrowed from my
local library
Where To Get:
Blurb:
In MAXIMUM RIDE: SAVING THE WORLD
AND OTHER EXTREME SPORTS, the time has arrived for Max and her winged
"Flock" to face their ultimate enemy and discover their original
purpose: to defeat the takeover of "Re-evolution", a sinister
experiment to re-engineer a select population into a scientifically superior
master race...and to terminate the rest. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and
Angel have always worked together to defeat the forces working against
them--but can they save the world when they are torn apart, living in hiding
and captivity, halfway across the globe from one another?
Quotes:
“Us. On a plane. That
seemed so wrong somehow. Redundant.”
“The flyboys were not so
fortunate. One after another they plowed right into the sign, setting off
electrical charges that shorted them out and made quite a few of them explode
like metallic, furry popcorn. And if you think that’s a gross description, be
glad you weren’t there, being pelted by the little pieces.”
“I motioned everyone
closer. ‘Guys, I do believe that France is calling our names.’ Nudge frowned.
‘They’re yelling for flying bird kids?’”
“I felt like this was the
most castley castle I’d ever seen. It was all pointy and chock-full of turrets,
with narrow slits for cute Robin Hood arrows and other windows with many tiny
panes of glass.”
“Once more with the
hand-waving. It was like hypnotizing a cat.”
My Thoughts:
I went to Chicago this past
weekend to FINALLY see my favorite band,
Aerosmith in concert!!!! They were amazing! I’m originally from Chicago, and
even though I love living 5-5 ½ hours away, the drive from St. Louis up to
Chicago is straight and pretty boring. Cue audiobook. I borrowed an audiobook
from my local library to listen to on the drive to make it less boring. Let’s
just say that I missed an exit and had to turn around because I was SO into
this story!
I
thought that this was the first book in the series, but it is not. It’s
actually Book 3, but I didn’t realize this until I was about halfway through
the audiobook. That is a testament to Patterson’s writing, because he was able
to provide enough background info that I didn’t realize this wasn’t the first
novel in the Maximum Ride series. I think that I would have definitely gotten
more out of the story if I’d read the first two, but I don’t think I missed
anything or that the story was impacted by not having read the first two in the
series already. Compare it to a movie version of a book. There’s no way to be
able to fit everything from a book into a 2-hour movie, but the story is still
whole.
Like
all of Patterson’s work that I’ve read, this story is fast-paced and exciting
from start to finish. Even the slower chapters still continue building the
tension that runs throughout the entire novel. This is an original and
captivating story where I found myself pulling for Max and her flock, and
wishing that they could just live a normal life… or as normal a life as you can
have when you’re a teen or kid with wings. In true James Patterson form,
there’s even a few twists, and I usually don’t see his coming because I get so
sucked into the story. Every novel of his, I know there’s a twist, but I
usually don’t see it coming, and even more rarely figure out what the twist is
going to be! This is why I love James Patterson, and I’m looking forward to
reading the rest of the books in the Maximum Ride series. They’re fun, fast,
exciting, and not too heavy that younger readers won’t be able to read and
relate to them. I definitely recommend this book, and really enjoyed the
audiobook and Valentina de Angelis as narrator. She was great and very
authentic as Max!
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars