Another book I read for my book club. Like the last book I read because of the club, Chosen, Maximum Ride was a fairly quick read. I didn’t get through this one as quickly as Chosen both because it is longer and I was working on finals and had to focus more energy on finishing the semester than on reading.
Before I get to my opinion I have to mention something I noticed regarding this book: many of my friends love it, but most of the recent reviews I have read panned it. I could say I fall somewhere in the middle, but that would be wrong. This book is good. It isn’t the greatest story ever written, and I don’t see it becoming a classic on the level of Harry Potter or The Hobbit, but I am happy this book exists.
I’ve heard many complaints about Max, many of them calling her a Mary Sue. Although I can understand why some people felt like she was overpowered, this didn’t feel wrong because the rest of the flock was very powerful to so Max didn’t stand out in this way. I also didn’t find Max to be a Mary-Sue because although she was strong she had many moments of vulnerability. Like *Spoiler* when Max begins to get migraines after Angle is rescued, she worries about the possibility of her dying. We learn Erasers (the other project at T
The flock is constantly on the run, and it is made very clear this isn't healthy. Max is frustrated she can’t stay in one place for very long, but she doesn’t want the other flock members to know this. Max is the leader and she needs to be the last one to break under pressure. However, she’s still a fourteen-year-old girl. She’d rather be baking chocolate-chip cookies with normal parents than constantly defending herself and the flock from erasers, deadly human-wolf hybrids. This desire for normalcy is what Max appears to want the most, but she can’t get it. (There is no way her 13 ft. wings are going to just disappear). It is impressive that Mr. Patterson managed to make a character who isn’t exactly human feel so very human.
The plot did drive me crazy me at moments. The School, the laboratory where the flock was made, disgusted me, and whenever Max recalled the treatment the flock, and everyone else with the misfortune of being an experiment there, received did more than ruffle my feathers. However, I think it is a positive thing I grew to hate the “bad guys” so much. It was impossible for me to stop rooting for the flock even when I found some of their choices to be unwise. They are still only children after all.
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