James Patterson

I haven't read very much of his work, primarily because I'm actually offended by how popular he is despite his bone-dry writing and juvenile sentence structure. James Patterson has a pasture full of cash cows fed by his writing, and it shows: his stories are lazy. I don't actually see any passion for writing in him. He stamps them out like they're updates for a webcomic.

 

I read a few of them, years back.

No particular opinion of the books other than they were pretty ok as holiday reading. (That's where I bought them anyway )

 

I guess he is just too old to write based on how his writing is. There is no excuse if you are too old or you just want to complete your work. I guess writing a good novel that is worth being called a Bestseller takes time.

 

The first time I read a James Patterson book it was actually a graphic novel of Maximum Ride. I really liked it in graphic form. The characters and story were pretty good, but my local library didn't have them all yet, so I decided to read the novels instead. And was disappointed. In some ways I liked the short chapters and the action, but the writing itself was definitely sub-par. Also it seemed like he didn't really give proper explanations and motives for the events. Like, why beat the flock up and kidnap Angel in order to bait the others? I mean, they're completely at your mercy and you could just take them in, but instead you let them go. Are you a MORON? Oh, no, of course not. Because it's all testing, right? You scientists went to all this trouble to create birdkids and test them, etcetera, and then you're just planning to KILL them anyway! How much thought really went into that storyline?

But of all the James Patterson novels I've read, the Maximum Ride series is the best, in my opinion. I also read Confessions of a Murder Suspect. My main gripe about that is that we were presented with the character of Tandy and led to believe that she is extremely intelligent and responsible for her age. And sure, she has a lot of knowledge. But where is her common sense? Some of the things she does are just unbelievably simple-minded. Like, didn't you think that through? Can't you think ahead? Why didn't you investigate certain things properly before people tried to take them away and you had to fight to get them back? You had plenty of opportunity. These characters and these events did not seem at all credible to me.

But the worst of the worst was Daniel X. I read the first book. The writer in me despised it. I lost count of how many times I almost gave up reading it. But in spite of myself I did want to know how the story ended. And since it was such a quick, easy read I could demolish it. That might be why books like this are so popular, even though they suck.

Over all I am not impressed with James Patterson at all. It amazed me to see on the library catalogue computer that there is a rental copy of the first Daniel X book in the adult fiction section. I'm sixteen and it was torture for me. How can any adult stand that?

 

I read the graphic novel of Maximum Ride too. They were the first books which got me into the Maximun Ride novel series, and I didn't read the first two books because of the manga. The one thing I don't get is why some of the scientists want to sell the hybrid kids as bio weapons for foreign counties when they are going to destroy humanity? And they tried to wipe out all the mutants and replace them with robots. WTF? If I was going to replace mankind with mutants, I would simply create a virus to kill all the humans that doesn't affect the mutants. It would be cool if James wrote another Maximun Ride book that shows what the future is now with only hybrid mutants, but I don't think he is going to do it. Also the part I thought was funny is when Max rejected this perfect good looking bird kid for Fang, then he goes PMS by wrecking stuff. How lame is that?

Daniel X kept me reading because of the cliff hangers and addicting twist information. Plus I like aliens and how interesting Daniel's power is. But the characters sound retarted, like children thinking all the danger is fun. All the humor is cheesy and not very funny. Plus if Daniel has the power to create anything out of thin air, how come it is so hard for him to defeat all the wanted alien outlaws? He has a power of a god for Christ's sake. I bet he can easily defeat Superman with one thought. Even if he is still learning, how hard can it be? One thought can kill anything, unless one of his enemies have the same power.

I never got into Confessions of a Murder Suspect. The character sounds too smart and too mature. And she is unbelievable. of course it could be interesting if she is the one who murdered her parents, but she sounds like a detective who already knew what to do. Even if that what makes the story addicting, the first pages bored me to death.