Max Ride Forever, Book Review Part 1

Or: Oh God Why Does This Book Exist?

(Normally I wouldn't give a heads up about the language, but this one is saltier than usual.)

 Hey readers! It's good to be back, I thought I'd launch right in with the latest Maximum Ride, reviewing it as I go. (So, obviously, there are going to be spoilers during my review.) I already mentioned before that, despite ending the series, James Patterson apparently needed more money and decided to pull yet another train wreck out of his arse. Never mind that, in an interview, he admitted he was tired of writing about all the characters except Max (I really wish I could find a link to that interview.), so that further ruined the book for me, knowing a tired author was writing about characters he was sick of.

When I first enjoyed Maximum Ride I would read the previous book before blowing through the new one in a single day. As each new book came out a creeping feeling of dread would get worse and worse. I was not excited to read Forever one bit, it felt like a chore, and the book sat on my nightstand for weeks at a time. Even Twilight ended after four books for crying out loud!

Blearrrrrgh!!

Each Maximum Ride Book is separated into "books" which I think is really stupid. Really they're more parts. So I'll separate them like that as well. Part 1 is the largest, with parts 2 and 3 being about equal in size to each other. 

So, here for your craptastic enjoyment, is part one of the train wreck of Maximum Ride Forever.

The beginning is set 3 months after Nevermore (which, as you recall, was subtitled The Final Maximum Ride Adventure, just saying), because even James Patterson couldn't fix the unfixable mess he'd left the story in.

Patterson makes his first groan-inducing mistake right on page 2: Total talks.

OHMYGODJUSTDIE

It's not soon after that Dylan is killed off. Like before, Patterson is bending to the will of the fans to ensure that the Max/Fang relationship stays as the primary one. Never mind that Dylan, like Maya, was one of the most interesting, multidimensional characters in the series.

Eventually the flock leave their stupid island, you know, the one that was supposed to be a fallout shelter against all the apocalyptic bad stuff that was going to go down? They got all set up for it and then suddenly a meteor came out of nowhere. Never mind that scientists track that stuff over the course of years, and would know about it so well in advance that your parents would know about it before you were even born.

Anyway, as they travel the flock discover that the end of the world was apparently caused by more than just a meteor. It was plague, earthquakes, floods, droughts, global warming. Pretty much every single apocalyptic event except for the Rapture and zombies.

Eventually the flock come across some hyena-like creatures at the very top of a high-rise building in the middle of a destroyed city because...well, I honestly can't think of a reason that, of all places, hyenas would be 120 stories up in a building. The fight goes on, although for some reason the flock doesn't have the same cool, actiony moves they did before. Max even pulls out the sink sprayer and uses it on one of them. I don't know how my love for the series could have shriveled up even more than it already has, but it did at that moment.

So beautiful, yet so deadly.

Akila, Total's completely normal dog companion who he (apparently?) even married and calls his wife, is carried around all this time from the beginning of the book. She gets injured during the hyena fight and dies. This is one death I'm actually okay with because she was a waste of book space and contributed absolutely nothing to the story.

They end up in a cabin eventually and Fang finds a tablet device that apparently still works. It doesn't have wireless but let me quote a big here:

""Five G." Nudge wiggled her magnetic fingers. "I know it makes no sense, but don't question it."

THE READERS ARE #&%*ING QUESTIONING IT!

Let's take a moment to talk about writing.

I have a book called How NOT To Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman that has a short, but useful, part about How Your Job is Harder Than God's. Here's a bit of it from TV Tropes:

"Why Your Job is Harder Than God's". A Contrived Coincidence can resolve a conflict in real life, but for fiction, the reader will expect the resolution to be set up within the context of the plot. As a rule, major coincidences can be used to set a plot in motion, but not to resolve it.

You don't pull crap like that in writing.

With that out of the way, I'll continue.

Fang checks his blog and, apparently (expect me to use "apparently" a lot, this is a story of deus ex machina), other people have "Five G" as well because they are still making comments. Because of some new information gathered from it the flock end up torn between Russia and the United States. Fang wants to stay with Max, but Angel reminds them that the longer Fang sticks around the more of a threat he is to the world's survival (??). I thought at some point he was supposed to be the key to saving things? I honestly can't keep track anymore. I do remember that Fang was supposed to be the cure for the apocalyptic plague, but that was thrown out the window. He was also supposed to die, but I thought that prophesy thing was resolved with the cliche of his heart stopping a few seconds a few books back? (Yet another cliché.)

Because of Fang's refusal, Angel has a hissy fit and decides to "show" Fang. Because, along with reading minds, she can also see the future apparently? And also Vulcan Mind Meld. Anyway, remember how stupid the Thor vision bath in Age of Ultron was? Yeah, it's that kind of stupid.

HURRRAAAUUUURRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!

After that Fang turns Emo (when before he was just sort of broody) and then he and Max have sex I think? (?!?) Which has, in itself, become a cliche. You know, when Character X needs to leave but Character Y doesn't want them to. they have sex and, while Character Y is asleep, Character X slinks off. If this isn't a TV Troupe by now, it should be.

So Fang gets attacked by more hyenas, which are apparently robots for some reason. Then he leaves.

After that the rest of the flock splits up. Max, Nudge, and Total head back to the island which is, literally, unlivable now thanks to a volcano spewing lava and ash everywhere. Max wants to stay there because she's emoing too, and hopes her mom, sister, and Dylan are all still alive. Thus far they are not, but the mini flock come across a bunch of fish kids who now life in the underground network of tunnels (because Patterson doesn't know how volcanic activity affects water). Nudge decides to stay with them and Max changes her mind (yet again....) and wants to leave the island. So far Max's count for the island is: stay, go, stay, go, and that's just counting this book, not the previous one. Anyway, Total stays behind with Nudge and Max continues forward.

So, let me back up a bit.

During this whole time it cuts to chapters about a character with the mouthful name of A10103. Chapters about him didn't appear until Dylan's death, which makes him entirely obvious until shown otherwise. He works for the bad guys and is part of an elite number of people known as Horsemen. Since A10103 is a pain to read, the character decides to give himself a nickname. He calls himself Horseman.

...I think I liked A10103 better.

For the first half of the book he just runs around tracking the flock, never actually catching up to them and being a general douchebag.

After that he unceremoniously murders Nudge. Seriously, it happened about like that (boo!), then it's hinted that he murders Total (yay!)

Does that make him a cereal killer? Sorry...

Now, the irritating thing about Maximum Ride is that the characters never stay dead. Normally I'd hate for characters to come back (I'm not even a huge fan of Nudge), but this us a pretty asshole move on Patterson's part to kill off characters just because he's sick of them.

So far the book is not doing anything to assuage my predisposed hate of it.