I picked up Maximum Ride after reading James Patterson’s When the Wind Blows and The Lake House in anticipation of more thrills from his extraordinary bird-children. Of course, that’s exactly what I got. (Note: These aren’t the same children from his previous books, though some of the names are the same, they’re still bird children, and the School is the place where the children were created.)

Fourteen-year-old Max takes her six bird-children gang (Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel) along for a ride in which they narrowly escape wolfman creatures (Erasers), learn they each are growing new abilities, and back to the dreaded School. And they do not want to go back there. That’s where they and the Erasers were created. They escaped from the School two years ago and were finally free from the experiments and training.

Problems arise when Angel, the youngest of the four, is kidnapped. The rest of the gang is bewildered as to why they only took Angel and not any of them. Angel has a secret ability that none of them knew about. Now, the remaining five must go back to School in order to save her.

Patterson never fails to deliver an entertaining read. I’m still looking for a more humanistic side of the bad guys though. But, then again, people love to hate the bad guys. He still puts together decent story nonetheless, but it is almost redundant at some points, the similarities from his first two (unrelated) books.

The action doesn’t stop on any turn of the page or indent of the paragraph, which has been typical of all the bird-children books he’s written so far.

But, this book is only the tip of the mystery-filled iceberg for the six children. The author leaves many questions unanswered, which could turn away readers who like a clear-cut resolution by the end. I know this is the beginning of a series, but a little more resolution would have went a long way. However, the unanswered questions open countless possibilities for the future. Possibilities that I hope are fully realized in the next book.

Now, on to Maximum Ride: School’s Out—Forever.