Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment
Written by James Patterson
Reviewed by Josiah M. (age 10)
This book revolves primarily around a girl named Max (short for Maximum Ride) and her adopted family. However it gets interesting, you see, because they can fly, are only in their teens and are being hunted by wolfmen and evil scientists. Interested? The story starts when the Wolfmen (which, for the record, are called erasers.) attack the kid's home in the mountains and make off with one of them, a telepathic six year old named Angel.
The group sets off to free her but leaves two of the less capable members behind. What they didn't count on was erasers being all over the mountain looking for the kids. The two kids left on the mountain get in some trouble with the erasers, first by overturning and crashing one of their humvees, and then by setting off a bomb that kills two erasers.
The rescue group gets split up, meanwhile, and finally regroups after a full day of separation (there also joined by the kids left on the mountain, who had to evacuate.).Meanwhile Angel is given several "tests" (A.K.A torture sessions involving nasty stuff like mazes with hot coals in the floor.) by the evil scientists. When the group tries to break her out, they get captured. However they get freed by an army of hawks led by two of the kids.
When Angel discovers that files on them are being stored in New York the group, naturally, heads to New York On the way there Max discovers that she has a voice in her head (a common form of insanity).When they finally get to New York they manage to get in trouble with erasers and NYPD. With the help of Max's voice-in-her-head (which seems to be coming from a microchip of some sort) find the location of the files, and several mutants. They free the mutants and steal the files. The files point to Washington D.C. and the kids begin their journey. The big idea in this story? The human mind is much crueler then we think.
This book is awesome!!!!!!!!! There is a diverse mix of feelings here, a bit of humor, lots of action, and a fair amount of mystery. This book makes me want to strangle those scientists (I mean the ones in the book.). But it also gets me thinking about biochemistry. I liked a lot of the characters and noticed that one, Max, changes a bit (emphasis on the "a bit" part.). She gets a voice in her head; it's a change albeit a small one. I can't say this reminds me of my life at all though.
I would highly recommend this book for older readers. It has a bit of graphic violence and language though. Besides that, everything is awesome, especially the plot. In short, this book is awesome.