Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Kathleen

If James Patterson were about fifty years younger, I would marry him for his stunning talent alone. He would write me endless stories about Maximum Ride and her friends and I would lie in bed eating peanut butter m&ms and read to my hearts content.

If you havent figured it out, I finished the second Maximum Ride novel; Schools Out- Forever. Alright, the title is just plain dumb, but the amazing adventure just keeps rolling. Actually if it were up to me I would have named it something completely different, like maybe something that actually related to the majority of the book instead of just a fourth of it. But I digress. It could be called Billy the Space Jelly Bean for all I care, this book would cancel out the stupidest of titles with its epic plot and heart breaking character development.

Without giving away too much of the first book; Schools Out-Forever follows Max, Fang, and the rest of them once again. The gang is attacked on the beach and Fang gets hurt bad enough to actually admit that hes hurt& which is pretty bad. They are forced to take him to the hospital where the doctors tell the FBI that theyre treating a group of winged mutant freaks& which is pretty bad. They are taken in by one of the agents claiming to want to protect them and go to live in a huge sprawling country house with plenty of room to fly& which, in retrospect, is pretty good. Unfortunately, with great real estate comes great responsibility. The kids are forced to enroll in school and so off they go to get an education for the first time in their lives& which is really bad.

This book felt like a perfect continuation of the first. It hardly even seemed like a separate book. Where most series seem to take time to pick up the pace and get into the meat of the story just like any other book, Schools Out moved flawlessly from the cliffhanger ending of the first book. It wasnt a separate story, just a continuation of the adventure. And, in all honesty, I actually liked this one better and heres why;

Patterson is so dedicated and true to his characters development from the last book that not only did we get to see some great plots and mutant kid action, but he began to play around with the inter-flock relationships. Theres some dissent, rebellion, jealousy, and even a little romance all within the six tightly woven main characters. Ive decided that my favorite character is Fang with Max in close second. Fang is a mysteriously complex and yet you know his loyalty and love for the flock and never once question it. He gets so angry when somebody threatens the people he loves, and hes risked his life on several occasions just to sock it to somebody whos pissed him off.

The climax, I feel, came a little bit too late in the book and was just a bit too short. My heart was pounding through the whole end, but it seemed to resolve itself too quickly. That, the talking dog, and an infuriating (in a good way) opponent are the only complaints I have about this book. Obviously I want you to read this book, but read Maximum Ride first or you will have no clue what is going on.