I'd like some input on books to review though, I don't want this to be all about me. If you have any suggestions please post them in the comments, twitter, facebook, google+ et al.
First up however is:
First Published August 3, 2010 by Harper
Author: Pittacus Lore
I Am Number Four is the epic (?) tale of John Smith, a Garde
from the planet Lorien who has been hiding on Earth for the past 10 years with
his guardian Cëpan, Henri. After the vicious attack on their planet by the evil
Mogadoriens (who I nicknamed Mog Dogs and came pretty damn close to their
actual nickname) left Lorien little more than a sphere of ash, nine children are
forced to flee in order to later rebuild their civilization. The Garde are a
class within Lorien society that eventually develop super powers called
legacies. Some of them are lame like having flashlights for hands but others
are pretty cool like turning invisible and having telekinesis. The Cëpan are a
somewhat servant class on Lorien that don’t have powers and raise the Garde
from a young age.
To protect the children until they are strong enough to
fight back, the Loriens put a charm on them where they can only be killed in
numerical order. (“You gotta be f*cking kidding me!” – Number one after finding
out how the charm worked) The charm has the added bonus of reversing whatever
damage would have been dealt back at the attacker.
The book was written by Pittacus Lore, a pseudonym for James
Frey and Jobie Hughes. The same James Frey who was famously berated by Oprah
Winfrey on national television for his supposed memoir A Million Little Pieces.
So you know the dude is a great story teller. I still don’t know why they went
with a pseudonym because the story is told in a first person narrative from
the perspective of Number Four.
My biggest issue with this book was the fact
that it was written by two authors. I’ve read other books that use two authors (Good Omens for example) and they turned out well but James and Jobie just don’t seem to jive with each
other. I could always tell when the narrative switched from one author to the other. One
of them was really great at describing a scene and pushing the story along but
horrible at dialog. While the other was great at dialog but couldn’t move the
story along to save his life. I'd like to find an article they do out of character (Seriously they've done interviews AS Pittacus Lore) where they admit who did what part of the book.
At first I didn’t like the gross misunderstanding of physics
and biology utilized by the authors. One character was able to jump a three
hundred foot ravine and another was able to swim two miles underwater while
only coming up once to take a breath. Add to that the fact that the alien
heroes can easily run 65 miles an hour, throw objects into the next county and
punch people in a way that they will fly twenty feet through the air and have next
to no injuries.
I took issue with this mostly because in high school I was such
a nerd that a friend and I spent a lot of time thinking about what it would
actually take for human-like creatures to have even remotely like that of comic
book characters. We had drawings, diagrams and everything it was a lot of work.
A few chapters in though I remembered this was a YA book and calmed the heck down
with my misplaced frustration. I also remembered that they optioned off the
movie rights a year before the book was even published so I started to read the
book as if I were watching a movie. That made the book infinitely more
enjoyable. I made the mistake of watching the movie though and that was a giant
disappointment. With all the special effects pretty much detailed in the book, I
have no idea what the movie makers were thinking.
But that’s a whole different
blog.
I Am Number Four is a Young Adult novel with typical YA characters.
The supporting cast fit into their stereotypical mold. Sam Goode is the nerdy
best friend who wears big dorky glasses and a constant supply of NASA t-shirts
(Because Star Trek and Star Wars are copy written, duh). Sarah Hart is the love
interest who is totally hot and not a bitch and has a fascination with
photography. I’m not sure exactly why she’s the love interest except for the
fact that she’s blond and the narrator tells us she’s beautiful. He doesn’t
describe how she’s beautiful so we’re just supposed to take him at his word.
The human antagonist is Mark James, the star quarterback, son of the local
sheriff, ex-bf to Sarah and overall giant douchebag. He’s there to provide conflict
so the author doesn’t blow his prose load and have the bad guys show up early. John
even has a pet beagle named Bernie Kosar after a poster in John’s room of the
famous quarterback (I gotta say, dude is bad at picking names. First he names
himself John Smith and now he names his dog Bernie Kosar?). Bernie Kosar has a
secret that I totally called in the first chapter but I’ll leave it for you to
figure out on your own.
The character development and scene description is often
bland and makes you wonder what is going on in the narrator’s head but I
attribute this to the duel authorship. Other scenes are spelled out in
fantastic detail and the pacing is spot on for the genre. The main character's love story serves only to get him in trouble. First with Mark James and
again right before spit hits the fan. Henri demands that they leave town and
stay alive but John wants to stay so he can hook up with Sarah. But I was 15
once and if it came down to getting laid or avoiding being killed by an evil
race of aliens I would totally choose the girl. Hell I’m 27 and I’d still choose
the girl.
The Mogs eventually discover our hero’s whereabouts and all hell
breaks loose at the high school. John, Sam and Sarah are joined by a mysterious
chick in a shiny skin tight outfit that turns out to be one of the other Garde
named Six (that’s literally all they ever call her). They defeat the bad guys
(cause this is the first of six books) and Six, John and Sam head out on the
road to try and find the rest of the Lorians.
The book was a surprisingly quick read at 448 pages. Before
I knew it I was halfway through it and couldn’t put it down. If you go into the
book like you’re watching an action movie or reading a comic book you’ll really
enjoy it. It is a YA novel so it’s geared towards younger folk but I got a kick
out of it none the less.
7/10 for action, character stereotyping and breaking the
laws of physics.
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