Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson

Synopsis:

After the mutant Erasers abduct the youngest member of their group, the "bird kids", who are the result of genetic experimentation, take off in pursuit and find themselves struggling to understand their own origins and purpose.

After the mutant Erasers abduct the youngest member of their group, the "bird kids", who are the result of genetic experimentation, take off in pursuit and find themselves struggling to understand their own origins and purpose.

I read the Lake House mini-series a few years back, so this book seemed very familiar to me. It is not a continuation of that series, but those books apparently sparked this series into being produced.

I am hoping that because a veterinarian was a main character in the pervious series, we will continue to see Ella and her mother throughout this one.

In this first installment, we get to meet Max and her “family” of fellow kids. They are all very unique and have their own specialties. We got to learn a bit about their personalities and were given a peak into where they came from. I think that as the series goes on, we will learn more about their original families and why they were given to The School to be given mutations.

I liked this book as a foundation, and I think the rest of the series will only grow off of it. I want to know who controls the voice in Max’s head and how exactly she is supposed to save the world.

I know the Erasers are supposed to add conflict, but I could do without them.

4/5 stars

Memorable quote: “I wont lie to you – it felt really good. And really awful at the same time. Because what’s worse than knowing you want something, besides knowing you can never have it?”

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Darkside by T.A. Miles

Synopsis:

Xandria: A mega-metropolis on Bhast, humankind's newest home.

Calen: A young athlete and son of a top ranking senator.

Luka: A mysterious operative with an unorthodox method of investigation.

Yoshiro: A rising star in Xandria's exotic underworld.

Staciel: An enigmatic figure of political and social deterioration, a catalyst for change.

On the eve of an unprecedented political maneuver in Xandria, Calen Liese flees from his home, leaving a murder scene behind and setting into motion a chain of events that could decide the fate of humankind on Bhast, beginning with the planet's Fey population; a group seemingly handicapped by acute empathy and society's uncertain fears, drawn to the destructive and oppressive powers within the planet's largest slum. Are Fey the next evolution of humankind? Or were they created? Darkside is a sociological post-Earth thriller.

It took me a long time to get through this novel. It is very long, so it was easier to pick up shorter books instead and get through them quicker.

Something I didn’t like was the amount of different characters and how they appear. This book could have probably been broken up into a few books that covered different storylines while integrating the main characters with the new ones. Instead, it was all thrown together and became a bit jumbled and confusing.

Many times, new characters will just be introduced by reading a new name. I didn’t have the slightest clue where some of them came from or what the points of their storylines were. I either figured it out after reading further, or I just never new and I forgot about them.

This book likes to jump from event to event with no real transitional phase. It is easier to get used to as you read more of it, but it is very confusing in the beginning.

I would say it is like a reading funnel. It starts our very broad with a lot of different things going on, and as it progresses, it all stars to come together and fit into one story line.

I felt like this was almost a never-ending book and it needed to be broken up to make it more interesting. I often found myself wondering how much longer it would take me to read it. It dragged on for a good portion of the book and just made it really, really difficult to get through.

The one bright spot in the book is that the characters were all pretty well developed even if some of them didn’t seem to have that big of a part in the story.

1/5 stars.  I am sure there will be many readers who will get into this book, but I was not one of them.

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