Customer Reviews
Talk about preachy! - By: Rosie D, 05 Jul 2008 
If I wanted to read a book on how global warming is affecting the earth, then I would've bought a non-fiction book on global warming.
This was the last thing I'd have expected from a Maximum Ride book. Whatever happened to the flock taking down the School & Itex & alll that jazz which we LOVE!?
I was lying in hospital yesterday after having my tonsils out & had just finished the 3rd one when I got my dad to go & buy the 4th. He shouldn't have bothered.
It was such a disappointment & possibly one of the worst books I've ever read.
Either James Patterson got a ghost writer to write it or has gone bonkers with the paranoia of so callled 'Global Warming.'
BRING BACK THE OLD MAX!
Is this a Maximum Ride book? - By: Julie, 22 May 2008 
I picked up this book & my first thought was 'Is this a Maximum Ride Book'? The text was twice as large, the book much thinner & the first ten pages or so were devoted to some rubbish prologue that was never refereed to or mentioned after. What did it tell me? That the flock could fly...and of course I didn't know that!
Patterson changed Max dramaticallly in this book, losing her feisty tomboy spark & instead making her a preppy cheerful 'in touch with her feelings' sort of girl. Which went down like a ton of bricks with me. Max & Fang also seem to be stuck in some sort of time loop with their relationship. I felt like Patterson had literallly rephrased the scene on the cliff in book three & stuck it in here.
Fangs blog which got a few laughs out of me last time seemed to only have been put in to fill up more space & to update the stupider readers on what the plot so far had been. Which leads me to the next point- the plot...If there is one. So Jeb (who now seems to have been totallly forgiven)has suggested that the flock potters off to Antarctica & of course, they agree. When there, very little happens apart from some bizarre stuff about a cyborg & some penguins...to tell the truth, my mind had literallly switched off at this point so these few chapters just drifted through my mind (which was effectively asleep)without leaving any impression. So, without actuallly doing any good, the flock are off again but not to the cat-and-mouse game that was so good in the other books. No, they have been captured by a baddie (Itex has now disappeared) we know nothing about & don't care about. The 'Uber' Director. Of what? I told you, we don't know anything about him! Of course, being a complete idiot, he is destroyed by a grade 5 hurricane that he CHOSE to hide in the path of!
Another amazingly annoying part to this book was the flocks powers. They seemed to develop a new one about every one every 5 pages, despite the fact that none of them came in use at alll. Obviously, Patterson only added them because he could not think of anything else to keep the plot moving.
Total also disappointed me. (Hold on- I'll explain how a talking dog can be a let down!)So, Patterson decided to give him the most bizarre mutation-He.Grew.Wings.Yes, you heard me right- Patterson grew tired of Iggy having to carry him. Another problem I had with him was his...disturbing crush on a husky.
This book brings more questions up than it answers. Patterson decides to destroy the secrets behind 'The Voice' (Which, incidentallly was very quiet in this book)and instead, not explain it. The ending is left hanging in the air & instead of ending in a bang, it ended it an unconvincing whimper, leaving the flock's location & future unknown.
The witty remarks, Max's sarcasm & general comedy, were the best parts of the last three books, but sadly,alll of the comedy was sucked out of this book, leaving it as a dry & empty shell.
Sorry this review has been so long, but I'm finallly at my last point- GLOBAL WARMING. Yes, It deserves capitals. We alll know that global warming is important but I cannot accept it when, despite the fact that they were no help to the research teams, Max ends up giving a 25 page speech to the very sort of 'officials' she has been trying to avoid for the last three books, saying that we are alll "equal". She's a genetic experiment who everyone has been trying to kill & she talks about equality? That's taking it too far!
So, to sum my review up... rubbish. I can't think of anything good about the book ,but if you think it sounds equal to the others, then go ahead, read on. If you are a die hard Maximum Ride fan, then read on with caution- you will be disappointed! If you are a new reader then I would recommend not approaching this book with even a ten foot barge-pole & those are my final words on the subject!
If I wanted sermons, I would have gone to a church. - By: TXFanatic, 16 May 2008 *WARNING -
!!!!MAJOR SPOILERS!!!-*
Max & company(comprised of Fang,Iggy,Angel & her brother Gazzy)are back for one more flight from James Paterson's book into your mind, this time tackling the wild polar regions of Antartica - for, uh... obvious reasons.To say they experienced some turbulence along the way would be a serious understatement.
Having waited with bated breath for the arrival of this book for almost two years, I felt, when I read it, as if a best friend that I had loved & respected just turned around & physicallly PUNCHED me in the face.
I was(and still am to the trilogy before) a huge fan of this series & my dissapointment was astronomical at the shoddy & undeveloped slant James Patterson took to his writing.
THIS BOOK WAS SINGULARLY ONE OF THE WORST BOOKS I HAVE EVER READ. Do not fear reader, I have reasons for this astonishing, & if I had not read this frankly stupidly lazy piece of melded-together-at-the-last-minute English, I would have thought ridiculous claim.
Okay, here are my manifold reasons. Firstly, the environment. Initiallly I cringed when I saw what the book was about, but I thought, hey this James Patterson we're talking about, surely he can find some way to pull it off.
Instead, for no particular reason, he took the Flock from that hair raising game of cat & mouse than so intrigued me & stuck them, in, Antartica. To help random scientists. One of which was a cyborg or whatever. Ooops, sorry I didn't sound apathethic did I? That was because I didn't CARE about the character. Patterson gave me no reason to. And look at penguins(that particular lovely piece of trash consisted of the best part of a whole chapter). At regular intervals the reader was fed reams about how global warming was BAD (oh reallly?) & how time is like...running out for(vague impression here) the world. Angel & Total(who grows FREAKIN WINGS in this book- aww..oh wait...that is SO stupid.He's a dog!!!!) get stuck, Max & Fang save them, are captured, bye bye to Antartica after about 4 chapters. It was like the author went okay, I'm bored...lets change the location. So the flock didn't reallly HELP anybody.With anything.Especiallly the environment.
Secondly, the bad guy. Oh yeah, German translation is technicallly REALLY(uber) bad guy. Ha, clever. Not. He was a guy, robot, human, thing that consisted of a face & organs in seperate boxes. Why? No one knows. He lives underground Europe. Why? Okay, nooo idea. Super soldiers were a good idea but weren't developed AT ALL. Appeared a few times then the book ended. Wow. Why is he auctioning the Flock? To get money. Okay, generic idea of the flaming century. Would have been more interested if it was to buy himself a body. Or a proper storyline.
Thirdly,the preaching & the warping of the characters. Max does an absolute TON of preaching in this book. We're alll the same(rich from a flying girl who's been hunted alll her life) family is important & lastly SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT. The adults(When did they ALL become the enemy??- how 2-D & lazy)bear the brunt of these attacks, because as Max begins to reminds us constantly(in this book alone) they have NO IDEA, AT ALL, what they've gone through. This becomes the character Max. The others pipe in from time to time with a few not-witty one liners & welll... thats it. No relationship between Fang & Max. He kisses her again. She runs away again. The End. I never once laughed with this book as I did the others. Not once. I felt closer to crying.
Fourthly, & lastly, their new powers. Nudge can attract metal, Gazzy can fart toxic clouds - which is what defeats the boxman-Uber Director of WHAT????( oh no wait- that was the giant hurricane in California)Fang can melt into the backgroud & Iggy can see things - but only against white surfaces. Right. So this made a difference to the outcome of the plot, right? No. None at alll. Then why did he throw them in at alll??? To confuse us??Because he ran out of ideas?? To make them in some kind of X-Men??
So there you are. It sucked. All the questions this book promised to answer. It didn't answer any. In fact it left me with more. Like mainly...WHY James Patterson? Why did you butcher one of my favourite books?
Be prepared for a dissapointing, terrifyingly short journey to nowhere. All the things that appealed to me about the Maximum Ride series is gone. The humanity. The laughter. The family. Even Max is missing from doing her flight across the top of your page as you read, something that made me smile everytime I opened the book. That was the last straw. Please, DON'T READ THIS BOOK. Even die hard fans can't love this one. Unless this is the first book you've ever read, you will, as ,any reader would, be able to pick out plot holes the size of the hole in the ozone layer he keeps harping on about throughout this book.
And please, stop preaching about the environment Patterson ,through reducing your characters to cardboard cut-outs of their former selves. It could have been done with aplomb & style but this author just couldn't be bothered with it. It fools no-one & this particular reader can't forgive you for it.
Global warming blah blah blah get back to the action!!!!! - By: Muzzymagic, 30 Apr 2008 
I cannot deny that in parts this book offers great entertainment with adrenaline packed, page turning sequences.
However this is the only reason that this book scrapes its dissapointing 3 stars. This is because I am afraid to say that this book becomes a lecture on how bad global warming is. With the main characters casuallly dropping into conversation that if we were to recycle our plastic bags then that would be the equivalent of taking 1 million cars off the road.
It is things like this that annoyed me. Does James Patterson reallly beleive that he can get away with turning a fantastic series into an avertising oppurtunity for global warming without the readers noticing.
Also a new bad guy is in the story from the beginning but with no explanation as to who he is in the previous books or in this one it just seems a bit random.
It also seems that in this book there was actuallly no story plan before he wrote it. It just seems that Patterson wanted to be able to make it as "Totallly awesome" as a cheesy american heroin based story can be.
A grade 4 hurricane mysteriously appears with no foreshadowing or pre warning but the flock are still taken to where it is headed even though surely the bad guys would choose to go somewhere where they themselves wouldn't be killed. It just follows no logic as the bad guys don't seem to have a plan to save themselves.
Buy this book if you have read alll of the others but if you are new to the series go to the first book. This book will be living in the shadow of its predeccors foreever. It is just purely dissappointing.
Maximum Ride - Final Warning - Wow - By: Mrs. Bryceina E. Grigor, 29 Apr 2008 
Please please keep this series going. I thoroughly enjoyed this book & would definately keep buying. I have been following this series since what feels like quite a few years & just do not tire of the storyline. This time quite "now" with the global warming issues. Fitted in very well.
