Maximum Ride: School's Out--Forever

Author: James Patterson
Year: 2007
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Pages: 407
Reading Level: Intermediate (ages 9-12)

Genre: Action/Fantasy
Series Information: Second of the Maximum Ride series
Location: Eastern United States, especially Virginia, Florida
Time Period: Present Day (2006)

Plot: Maximum Ride and her five friends: Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gassman, and Angel are special. Kidnapped in infancy, they've been raised in a lab where they were genetically altered. Now they are half human, and half bird, and they are trained with military defense tactics. Max and her flock have escaped from the lab, and now they're on the lam. However, they quickly meet trouble when the Erasers (a human/wolf/bird hybrid) catch up to them. Fang is mortally wounded in the fight, and he has to be taken to the hospital. The FBI finds out about Max and her flock, and a head agent offers Max the chance for all of them to stay at her house and recouperate. The next thing Max knows, she and her friends are all enrolled in a private school, and the FBI agent is talking about making the arrangement permanent. This doesn't sit well with Max, who has her own agenda: to find the lost family members of her flock, and to take down the evil power that genetically altered her flock in the first place. Can she convince the others to leave their comfortable new existence? SPOILER! When Max and her flock discover that the FBI agent is actually one of the heads of the lab where they were made into mutants, Max and her flock head off on their own again. They head for Florida for information about their past. Following a lead that points them to the headquarters of a large corporation, Max and her friends break in and are very nearly captured--but not before learning more about their past and their possible future destiny.

Comments: I picked up this book thinking that it looked like one that would appeal to boys. Even though the cover shown here isn't the same as the cover of the book I read, it has the same idea: the silhouette of a winged teenage boy. Surely that boy was the main character, Maximum Ride? It was therefore rather surprising to me to find out that Max is actually a winged teenage girl. Kudos should be sent to James Patterson for writing a very strong female character, but I still think this type of book will appeal to boys more than it will to girls.

All in all, the book was a fun, quick read. Sentences are short and to the point, as are the chapters, which average about two pages in length. Patterson's writing style fits perfectly with this setup. Dialog is quick and witty. The book is filled with one-liners. The action scenes are extremely fast-paced (and a little gruesome). And, impressively, even though Patterson gives hardly any recap of what happened in the first book in the series, the plot is still easy to follow. This is achieved by the fact that most of the book is written from Max's perspective, so you get a lot of her innermost thoughts. Even though Max is "Avian-American," she still has extremely human emotions. And lots of them since she's a fourteen-year-old teenager. This makes Max relatable even though her actions are tough.

Perhaps the biggest downfall of the book is that so much of the book is spent with hardly anything happening. This allows us to get to know Max better, and it's part of why she's as relatable as a genetically enhanced, military trained being can be, but if this series is supposed to be a sci-fi thriller, why are they taking a break to attend school? I wasn't too bothered by this fact while I was reading the book. The fast-paced dialog does help this section move along, but it's something that puzzles me now.

Themes: Evil Corporations, School, Definition of what a Family is, Saving the World

Red Flags: Violence (breaking bones, explosions, etc.) in the fight scenes.

Spacer and Rat

Author: Margaret Bechard
Year: 2005
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Pages: 183
Reading Level: Young Adult

Awards: 2006 ALA Best Books for Young Adults

Genre: Science Fiction
Location: Freedom Station, an asteroid that has been colonized by humans located in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Time Period: Far Future, when Earth is too crowded an people move to other planets in an attempt to survive.

Plot: Jack is a Spacer, a person born and raised on the asteroid Freedom Station. Kit is a Rat, a child who now has to scrounge for food since her parents died and left her alone at Freedom Station on the voyage from Earth to the asteroid colony Seattle Prime. Rats are particularly frowned upon by the people living in Freedom Station, who believe that if a person is not contributing to their community, they are just wasting valuable resources. Jack wants nothing to do with Kit, but when his friends try to corner Kit and turn her in for a reward, he feels sorry for her and helps her escape. Suddenly Jack finds himself involved in a problem he never expected. Before Kit's dad died on the journey from Earth to Freedom Station, he created the first sentient robot, a robot who named himself Waldo. Now different warring factions are trying to steal Waldo, hoping to use his advanced technology to create the new ultimate weapon. Jack must help Kit and Waldo escape the authorities and find transportation to Seattle Prime, where a colleague of Kit's father lives, before it's too late. SPOILER! After many close calls and daring adventures, Jack, Kit, and Waldo discover that the colleague at Seattle Prime is actually the leader of one of the terrorist groups that is trying to kidnap Waldo to make the universe's next ultimate weapon. Unsure of where to go or how to hide, Waldo decides to go off on his own and try to create other sentient robots to form his own colony. Convinced that splitting up is the best way to go, Kit returns with Jack to Freedom Station, where she will try to find a job and wait until Waldo sends her word that he's safe.

Comments: As is common with many science fiction and fantasy novels, it sometimes takes a while for the author to explain the concept of the book and do a little "world building." Bechard does a good job of world building without making the text slow down too much, but I found all of the slang a bit hard to get used to, and each time I picked the book up it took me a bit to adjust to the rhythm enough to figure out what was going on. Who knew that "spam" would be a swear word in the far future? "True fact." Once I got into the story, however, the plot flowed nicely and it built up to a very satisfying and exciting chase scene in the climax. The ending was somewhat open-ended, which made me wonder if this book has a sequel planned. While the slang may be off-putting to some people, readers who enjoy science fiction will probably enjoy this book.

Themes: Space Colonies, Sentient Robots, New Technology, War, Learning to get to know people before you judge them.

Red Flags: Mild things: Breaking in to a store; Stealing; A lot of swearing, but not with words we consider swear words; Someone is shot, but it turns out they were just hit with a stun gun instead of an actual gun with bullets.

Uglies

Author: Scott Westerfeld
Year: 2005
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 425
Reading Level: Young Adult

Awards: 2006 ALA Best Books for Young Adults

Genre: Science Fiction
Series Information: First of the Uglies series
Location: The Smoke
Time Period: Unknown Future

Plot: Tally Youngblood can't wait until she turns sixteen. Then, she will undergo mandatory intensive plastic surgery and be able to go live with her best friend Peris, who lives in New Pretty Town. New Pretty Town is a suburb of the city where all the "New Pretties" live with only one goal in mind--to have fun. Then Tally meets Shay, a girl Tally's age who scorns the idea of living in the idealistic world of the Pretties. Instead of showing up for her mandatory operation, Shay runs off to join the people who live in "The Smoke." The people in The Smoke are in hiding, and the authorities want to hunt them down. One of the authorities (called the Specials), Dr. Cable, refuses to let Tally have her operation until she follows Shay into The Smoke wearing a tracking device that will allow Dr. Cable and the Specials to hunt Shay and her friends down. Tally does as she is told, but she becomes conflicted when she meets the people of The Smoke, especially a boy named David, and she hears their side of the story. SPOILER! According to David and his parents, a beautiful body is not the only thing you get when you go in for your mandatory operation at the age of sixteen. The doctors also create lesions in your mind so you don't question authority. Tally had decided that she wanted to stay in The Smoke, but when she accidentally sets off her tracking device and some, including Shay, are captured, and when she hears of the Specials' scheme, Tally volunteers to turn herself in and become a Pretty in an effort to help David and his family undermine the Specials from the inside.

Comments: Westerfeld raises up some interesting issues in this novel. What does a perfect society look like? What would it act like? Is it worth taking away people's free agency to create this society? One appealing thing about this novel is that these issues are present, but the characters and story are strong enough that they can stand alone and the novel is not too preachy. Tally is a little whiny for me, but she's also plucky and ready for adventure. I can see why this is such a popular series.

Themes: Image, Conformity, Utopian Societies, Big Brother Societies, Rebels

Red Flags: There is some violence, but it's not very graphic, Tally wanders into a sort of orgy garden when she's sneaking into the New Pretties' area, but nothing is described.

Genesis Alpha

Author: Rune Michaels
Year: 2007
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Pages: 193
Reading Level: Young Adult

Genre: Science Fiction/Mystery
Location: Anwhere, USA
Time Period: Present Day (2007) or very near future

Plot: When Josh was born, he saved Max's life. Max was dying from cancer, and in desperation, his parents turned to InVitro Fertilization. Josh was the fertilized egg whose DNA was the closest match to Max's. Josh was born, and the stem cells from his umbilical cord were injected into Max to cure him from the cancer. In Josh's mind, this makes him and Max more than brothers. Even though Max is now away at college, the two keep in touch by playing an online game every Saturday called Genesis Alpha. One Saturday when Max doesn't show up for their weekly game, Josh is blown over when he learns that Max has been arrested for raping and murdering a fellow college student. Suddenly, Josh is faced with large moral questions: Does he believe Max could have done such a horrible thing? If Max is guilty, is Josh also responsible for the girl's death since he saved Max's life all those years ago? Will Josh also turn out to be a killer since the two of them are so close both socially and genetically? SPOILER! Josh is forced to confront all of these questions when Rachel, the murdered girl's sister, shows up at Josh's house insisting that Max is guilty. Rachel and Josh find evidence that Max really did commit the murder. Then Josh finds out that he is not only a close DNA match to his brother, but he is actually an illegally made clone of his brother. Josh must come to terms with both of these revelations in order to realize that he and his brother are not the same person, and his fate is his own.

Comments: This psychological thriller is a real page-turner. I couldn't put it down. Michaels isn't afraid to ask some very hard questions, but she does so with morality that wouldn't keep me from recommending it to younger teenagers. I think young adults are curious about subjects such as cloning, nature versus nurture, destiny, morality, and many of the other issues Michaels brings up. Readers follow Josh on his moral quest through Josh's first person narration. The pace of the book was slightly slower than I expected, but it keeps the reader's attention. Josh is a very believable character, and his voice rings true. I had more trouble with believing Rachel would do some of the things she does, but her methods are definitely effective. Because of the red flags listed below, I wouldn't recommend this book to people who are especially squeamish, but I think young adults will appreciate the way Michaels brings up age-old questions with a modern-day twist.

Themes: Stem Cell Research, Cloning, Morality, Destiny, Social Gaming

Red Flags: Rachel cuts herself with a knife, rusty screws, and anything else she can find, but there isn't much description about it.