Review Detail

I found this book to be a big block of high school drama, which was really rather disappointing, since there are ALIENS in this book! With cool powers! The authors (because, yes, it is written by two people who are using Pittacus Lore as their pen name) could go in so many great places with this idea! And they choose, for the majority of the book, to focus on a girl that John Smith (it’s not his real name, but you call him that or Number Four) likes, a bully who he is very capable of beating up himself, and a geeky new friend who just so happens to be fascinated by aliens. Of course, the fact that John is an alien does come into play in the story, since he has to hide all his secrets, but at the same time, he thinks the Mogadorians are getting closer to killing him, so he has to deal with that. But the alien stuff that should have driven the plot seemed more like a side plot than the actual plot. My point: you can have romance, bullies, and geeky friends, if you want, but why don’t you make that part of the story rather than the entire story?

I wasn’t much a fan of the characters either… I found John to be bland and boring. If you’ve watched the moving, he’s very sulky, but in the books, he was just there and the only character trait he seemed to have is that he likes Sarah and that he’s a nice guy. Bully was such a typical bully and his “character development” was forced to the point of ridiculousness. Sarah was simply there for most of the book, and I didn’t really care about her. I did like Sam (the geek), but my favorite character was probably the dog, and that is not me being cynical or mocking – it’s actually completely honest.

I Am Number Four is entertaining enough, and easy to read, but it left me no desire to read the rest of the series, which is probably going to be SIX books. I don’t have the dedication to read all of that with a mediocre book to start. With the ending of this book, though, it promises to jump into a lot more action and alien-based plot, rather than high-school-based plot, in the next book.

Other people seem to like this book, even if I didn’t, so you could give it a shot, if you want an easy, relaxing read or if it just seems like your kind of book.