Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment

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by Melissa Ramirez

James Patterson is a well known author of mystery novels, but his books are usually geared towards adults. What happens when he decides to take on the young adult genre? You get six children whom are 98% human and 2% bird and a book on the New York Times Children’s Best Sellers list.

I first became fascinated with Maximum Ride after reading two of Patterson’s previous novels When The Wind Blows and The Lake House. All three books contain a human/avian character named Max, but the similarities end when Max becomes the main character in her own story.

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment is a non-stop roller coaster of excitement, mystery, humor, and a dash of romance. I’m telling you, once you pick this book up, you won’t put it down until you turn the last page.

Max is your average girl, if you can get past the whole wing issue. Her goal is to take care of her “family”, which is a group of 4 other winged kids, whom were rescued from a deadly facility known as “The School”. Their world gets turned upside down when “The School” decides they want their six year old bird child, Angel, back.

Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, and The Gasman embark on an amazing journey questioning where they came from, making new friends and even more enemies, learning new abilities, and taking on whatever obstacles that get in the way of their number one goal, rescuing Angel.

This book is simply amazing. It has a great story line, and the characters each have their own distinct personality. As the story takes form, you face many plot twists and short chapters that all end with simple cliff hangers that make you want to keep reading.

Although the book is considered kid friendly, it has it’s moments that makes mothers say, “I don’t know if I want you reading this.” With graphic depictions of mutants complete with organs outside of the body, death, and violent fight scenes with wolf-like creatures called Erasers, make sure your parents or guardians are okay with reading a book like this.

The only other negative I can find with this book, besides the violence, is that it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. It makes you need the next book, Maximum Ride: School’s Out- Forever, which only answers few questions and gives you more questions to think about. Then you’re forced to pick up Maximum Ride: Saving the World and other Extreme Sports. Then again, that’s what a series is supposed to do.

On a brighter note, the characters display good manners and show compassion towards each other. They don’t display ego problems due to their abnormality, or consider themselves super heroes. They are much like normal teenagers and kids.

If you want a good, quick read, I strongly suggest this book. If you’re skeptical about starting a series, don’t worry, this is a good one and I promise that you will want to stick through it till the end.

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Filed under January 2008