Maximum Ride

Maximum Ride is probably one of the most famous fantasy books now a days. The saga, written by James Patterson, is the epic tale of the young girl, Maximum Ride, and her adventures has a half bird kid. According to her she and her five friend were born in a laboratory called the school, and experimented on all of their lives, resulting in the fac that the children have wings as well as other powers. Before the book starts they escape from the school and begin living with the scientist who helped break them out, Jeb Bathchelder. The books mostly consist of the six children flying around the U.S. running from the schools assassins, called erasers, and trying to discover if they really had parents or were just "grown in test tubes".

I really enjoyed the first book, and the second was ok, but as the series continued it got more and more ridiculous. Things would happen for no reason, characters would get powers and then never use them, and the main character became very ridiculous. I found that they characters were very unrealistic, and didn't change at all throughout the story, the plot, while it was a good original idea, lacked the necessary threads to tie it up nicely, and things happened for no reason and was left unmentioned for the duration of the book. I really do not know what James Patterson was thinking when he wrote this, because his other books are really good (minus Daniel X). In addition to the books there is also a manga (pronounced mon-ga) or comic book of Max Ride (which is released monthly in Yen+ magazine), and rumors of a movie have popped up here and there. In the end though I would give the Maximum Ride saga a 4/5 for originality, and a 1-2/5 for a good sci-fi novel.

Lucky Day.
~Jonesy