Maximum Ride: The Final Warning [Paperback]

*WARNING -

!!!!MAJOR SPOILERS!!!-*

Max and company(comprised of Fang,Iggy,Angel and 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 and respected just turned around and physically PUNCHED me in the face.
I was(and still am to the trilogy before) a huge fan of this series and my dissapointment was astronomical at the shoddy and 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, and 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. Initially 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 and mouse than so intrigued me and 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 really?) and how time is like...running out for(vague impression here) the world. Angel and Total(who grows FREAKIN WINGS in this book- aww..oh wait...that is SO stupid.He's a dog!!!!) get stuck, Max and 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 really HELP anybody.With anything.Especially the environment.

Secondly, the bad guy. Oh yeah, German translation is technically REALLY(uber) bad guy. Ha, clever. Not. He was a guy, robot, human, thing that consisted of a face and 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 and the warping of the characters. Max does an absolute TON of preaching in this book. We're all the same(rich from a flying girl who's been hunted all her life) family is important and lastly SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT. The adults(When did they ALL become the enemy??- how 2-D and 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 and welll... thats it. No relationship between Fang and 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, and 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 and 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 all. Then why did he throw them in at all??? 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 and style but this author just couldn't be bothered with it. It fools no-one and this particular reader can't forgive you for it.

I really enjoyed the first three istallments of Maximum Ride, but this one is a bit of a let down. The villian is not really fully explained and seems totally random at times. The main problem I have with this book is that for long passages it seems that Mr. Patterson is lecturing his readership in the guise of Antartic Scientists with the attitude of a disappointed science teacher. I agree Global Warming is a serious issue and should be highlighted, but there are more methods and opportunties in fiction (especially sci-fi/fantasy fiction) then to quote facts and figures in great chunks.

I picked up this book and my first thought was 'Is this a Maximum Ride Book'? The text was twice as large, the book much thinner and 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 dramatically in this book, losing her feisty tomboy spark and 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 and Fang also seem to be stuck in some sort of time loop with their relationship. I felt like Patterson had literally rephrased the scene on the cliff in book three and 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 and 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 totally forgiven)has suggested that the flock potters off to Antarctica and of course, they agree. When there, very little happens apart from some bizarre stuff about a cyborg and some penguins...to tell the truth, my mind had literally switched off at this point so these few chapters just drifted through my mind (which was effectively asleep)without leaving any impression. So, without actually 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 and 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 all. 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, incidentally was very quiet in this book)and instead, not explain it. The ending is left hanging in the air and instead of ending in a bang, it ended it an unconvincing whimper, leaving the flock's location and future unknown.

The witty remarks, Max's sarcasm and general comedy, were the best parts of the last three books, but sadly,all of the comedy was sucked out of this book, leaving it as a dry and empty shell.

Sorry this review has been so long, but I'm finally at my last point- GLOBAL WARMING. Yes, It deserves capitals. We all 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 all "equal". She's a genetic experiment who everyone has been trying to kill and 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 and those are my final words on the subject!