Fiction
« Previous EntriesJames Patterson Redeems Himself With ‘7th Heaven’
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008As big a fan of James Patterson as I am, I’ve been quite disappointed with some of his latest efforts. The past few installments of the Alex Cross series have failed to impress me. The Maximum Ride series has gotten progressively worse. But, thankfully, the Women’s Murder Club series has managed to stay strong. I finished ‘7th Heaven‘ earlier today and I have to say I was pleased. While the Alex Cross series has been fading away, the Women’s Murder Club series has remained consistent. While some twists were anticipated, the story overall kept its suspense. I hope Patterson can keep it up.
Maximum Ride: The Final Warning
Saturday, April 19th, 2008James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series certainly had promise. I enjoyed the first installment, The Angel Experiment. Unfortunately, each installment got progressively worse… The latest of the series, The Final Warning, is by far the most disappointing.
The novels have followed the story of 14-year-old Maximum Ride, a human-bird hybrid girl and four others just like her, who are on the run after escaping from “The School” where they were created. It was established in the first novel that Max had been created for a purpose: to save the world. A cryptic voice in her head has guided her and her flock along the way as they fight for their lives in their quest to fulfill that mission. Until The Final Warning, what that mission was exactly, they did not know. Quite frankly, I don’t think James Patterson knew until he started writing The Final Warning, because the mission seems entirely anti-climactic. The series has had human-wolf hybrids and robots out to kill Max and flock, and hints of a decades-long global conspiracy involving genetic research with recombinant life forms. Sounds exciting and thrilling doesn’t it So what is Maximum Ride’s mission really about?
Global warming.
That’s right. The Final Warning takes Max and her flock to Antarctica to study penguins, and ultimately to Capitol Hill, where Max gives a speech to Congress, urging them to heed the alleged warning signs and to do something to slow down global warming.
Instead of tying up all the loose ends from the previous books of the series, Patterson seems to have gone on a tangent by making global warming the focus of the latest novel of the series. Patterson may think he’s doing a service by using his popular series to “educate” kids about global warming — but ultimately the story has suffered.
The Maximum Ride series seems to be suffering from premature burnout. Patterson’s Alex Cross series started off very strong but started really going downhill with The Big Bad Wolf. After ready the most recent of the Alex Cross series, Double Cross, I felt that Patterson had taken the Alex Cross character as far as he could. Well, with Maximum Ride, he’s taken the series in the wrong direction and should stop. Unfortunately, despite the implication of the title, the ending implied there’s more coming.
And yes, I’m sure I’ll read it, but I can’t say I have high expectations for it.
Then We Came To The End
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008Today I finished reading ‘Then We Came To The End‘ the debut novel from Joshua Ferris. It is the story of the employees at a Chicago ad agency in the late 1990’s when the economic bubble burst. Ferris ’s diverse cast of characters bring a realistic humor to the everyday mundanity of the office setting.
The most interesting aspect of the story is that it is told in the first person plural… an extremely effective way of making the omnipresent narrator feel as one of the characters in the book.
At times it is hard to follow all the stories (comedic and tragic) and idiosyncrasies of all the individual characters, but they all are important parts of the novel, as they demonstrate that people are more than what they are when they are on the job.
‘Then We Came To The End‘ is a clever novel anyone who has worked in an office can relate to, and anyone hasn’t should read anyway.
‘Double Cross’ Reviewed
Saturday, January 19th, 2008As a longtime fan of James Patterson’s Alex Cross series, I always look forward to the next book of the series, despite the fact that the last few have been somewhat disappointing. I was hoping for James Patterson to redeem himself in Double Cross after a rather unsatisfying previous attempt in Cross. Unfortunately, Double Cross lacked in thrills and suspense, and was horribly predictable.
Perhaps Patterson has taken the Alex Cross character as far as he can realistically take him with. If it truly is better to burn out than to fade away, then Alex Cross needs to go into retirement… soon. In the more recent additions to the series, I found myself more interested in the parts of the stories that revolved around his personal life, particularly the strains on Cross’s family with his work and lifestyle, and a custody battle with his ex-girlfriend over their toddler son. There was a noticeable absence in Double Cross his family, and it’s not as if the parts about the DC Audience Killer or Kyle Craig were so engrossing that we couldn’t be taken away from them for a few more brief moments. Cross’s family life gave a lot more depth to his character, and was complementary to the bigger story. In Double Cross, it felt more artificial and supplementary.
But the worst thing about it was the predictability. I had the killers’ identities figured out much sooner than I should have. And some aspects of the end with Kyle Craig I had faint ideas of how they would turn out as well.
The story had potential in the beginning, but it just didn’t hold up to the end. If you’re a fan of the series, you have to read it just like I had to… but it just doesn’t measure up to his earlier efforts, such as Kiss The Girls or Cat & Mouse, two of my favorites in the series
Books Bought
Saturday, January 12th, 2008You’ll notice I’ve added a new section to the right sidebar called “Book Bought” — which, obviously shows books that I’ve recently purchased. I decided to add this section because I don’t usually read book in the order I purchase them, and I really want to show what books are coming into my personal library. Books under “Books Bought” are different from books under “Future Reads” because ideally “Future Reads” includes only books that I plan to read in the near future. True enough, Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to The End has been listed under “Future Reads” for several months, and I have yet to crack it open, though my plan is to remedy this after I finished I Am Legend.
As for the books I’ve just purchased, let me give you a run down:
As any reader of my blog knows, I’m a fan of Nick Hornby. Despite this, I haven’t read The Polysyllabic Spree or Housekeeping vs. The Dirt, both a compilation of selections from his “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” column for The Believer literary magazine.
I said in my previous blog entry that I was working on getting James Patterson’s Double Cross on audiobook, and I’ve finally done that. That will likely be read soon after I get it in the mail.
The last book I got was The Better of McSweeney’s, Volume 1 , which is a collection of “the best stories from the first ten issues of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern.” McSweeney’s publishes Believer and also put out the aforementioned Nick Hornby books of his columns from Believer.
Reading Update
Monday, January 7th, 2008There’s a been a few changes to my “Currently Reading” list.
First, I’ve put Love in The Time of Cholera on hold for now. The book has been a struggle for me to get through. Perhaps it’s the story… or the fact it’s a translation… I’m not sure. But, I’ve put it on hold in order to read two other books.
The first book I started reading after putting Cholera on hold was I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. I was interested in reading the book after seeing the movie last month. So far, I can say that the book is very different… But I cannot say which one is superior. I will give a full report when I finish the book.
The other book I started was The Book of Other People, a compilation short stories edited by Zadie Smith. I admit one of the main reasons for my getting the book was that Nick Hornby made a contribution to the book, however, I do find the book’s premise intriguing (the contributors were instructed simply to create a character) and expect to enjoy the colleciton in its entirety.
So, that’s what I’m reading at the moment. Perhaps I’ll end up reading more by Richard Matheson, or start reading Zadie Smith.
Recent & Future Patterson Reads
Sunday, January 6th, 2008Since my previous James Patterson update I’ve read a few more of his books, and a few more are coming out soon…
Recently Read:
5th Horseman and 6th Target
The last two books in James Patterson the Women’s Murder Club series.
Judge & Jury
A very good thriller about a mafia trial. Patterson’s love scenes are a bit smarmy, but story was great.
To Be Read in 2008:
Double Cross
The latest in the Alex Cross series… Still haven’t gotten a copy yet. Attempting to get the audiobook now.
7th Heaven
The latest in the Women’s Murder Club series… To be released February 4, 2008.
Maximum Ride: The Final Warning
The latest in the Maximum Ride series… To be released March 18, 2008.
Sail
New story, not part of a series… I’ll probably get the audiobook. This one will be released June 10, 2008.
The Dangerous Days of Daniel X
This one sounds very different from his previous work… More along the lines of a sci-fi thriller. This one will be released July 22, 2008.
The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
Thursday, December 6th, 2007I decided to read The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta after attending a reading and signing of Nick Hornby’s. During the Q&A he mentioned this book as one he’d recently read and had good things to say about it — so I gave it a chance. I could tell from reading some short reviews of the book before I started it that it had an agenda, but I gave it a shot anyways. The story itself reads like an after-school special, and is hellbent on portraying abstinence education as grossly misleading. The book’s portrayal of evangelical/born-again Christians is equally unflattering and misleading. The author, Tom Perrotta, seems to want readers of his book to believe that evangelicals are all weak hypocrites and fanatics with a unified mission on par with the Crusades to covert all nonbelievers at any cost while at the same time using their faith as a crutch to cover up their unhappiness.
It was amusing to read the part when Ruth Ramsay, the sex-ed teacher who begrudgingly teachers the abstinence-only sex education curriculum (which has been forced upon the school as a result of the threat of legal action) expresses her disgust over the false or misleading statistics she’s been told to give to her students, and proceeds to advise them to visit the website of Planned Parenthood for more “accurate” information — as if Planned Parenthood doesn’t have it’s own agenda that is harmful for young people.
The story went back and forth between the lives of the main characters, and the various burdens of life that define them. Ruth Ramsey being the sex education teacher who is responsible for the first controversy which starts the story. Then there’s Tim Mason, a born-again Christian who belongs the church which is the story’s antagonist. He is also the soccer coach for the team his and Ruth’s daughters play on. He is responsible for the second controversy which moves the story, when he leads the soccer team in a prayer following a hard-fought victory. Both had issues with their kids and their formers spouses, which certainly added a lot of depth to their characters.
The novel’s ending left open a lot of loose ends, but wasn’t as effective as the endings to Hornby’s novels. Hornby’s novels don’t have Hollywood-esque ending that artificially tie all the loose ends together. While the ending of Hornby’s A Long Way Down really sparked my curiosity about where the characters would continue to go. I didn’t have that same curiousity when I reached the ending of The Abstinence Teacher.
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