James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series

James Patterson, who I know also writes drama, action, adventure adult novels but of which I have never read, has written a series for kids.  I stumbled across it somehow and picked it up. Since I am writing a novel for young adults I thought it would be wise to see what’s selling.

Here is the book series so far:

The Angel Experiment
School’s Out – Forever
Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports
The Final Warning
MAX

So far I have gotten through Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports and I am waiting for The Final Warning from the library. When I picked up the first book I was again, reading it to fill the gap while waiting for some other books to come in.  The stories are about six kids who have been science experiments their whole (young) life. They have been grafted with avian dna and all of them have wings (they are called ‘the flock’ amongst themselves) and many of them have other abilities that manifest during their adventures.  They escaped the evil facility known as the school and are on the run. 

The first book I found very easy to put down during the first third or so.  But by that time, you know enough of their situations, you have affinity for the characters (or lack thereof for some characters) and you want them to win.  Just when you’re getting to that conclusion, their lives get turned upside down and sideways.  Once I got through that first third, I had a much harder time putting them down.  Mind you, these are definitely books for younger readers too so don’t expect adult content but they are very enjoyable adventures that you will probably save (or make note of) to turn your kids onto when they get old enough to read a full length novel.

If you want a nice, interesting, adventurous read in a kid view setting – this ones good.

This is one odd world

The other day I was driving  down a not so upscale street (affectionately called Whiskey Gulch) and saw an oddity.  I see them periodically and their strangeness always strikes me and leads me to share it if for nothing else then a laugh or a ‘there are some odd peeps out there’.

The street I was on was a four lane street.  I was going east in the left lane, coming up to a stop light when I noticed a car parked (yes parked) in the right lane of the other side of the road.  It was a silver, late model Cadillac.  It was not only parked in the road but was right in front of one of those classic seedy strip motels (yes, we have short term rooms, come on in).  The trunk was open and a very large African American lady with short bleach blond hair and a pink robe was standing at it.  If that’s not weird on its own, the lady had a bike at the trunk and looked like she was trying to figure out how to get it in.  As I passed slowly (thanks to traffic and the light) a cop pulled up and parked behind her. When he got out of the car she started yelling at him.  I wish I could have heard what she was saying but alas the traffic moved and I went with it.

Ya gotta wonder…was she stealing the bike? Did she leave it the last time she visited the hotel? Does she know what a parking lot is?  So many questions and so little answers…

Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy

Picked up the Vampire Academy as a holding book for another series I was waiting for.  Turns out it was pretty cool.  You can read about the series here: http://www.richellemead.com/books/vampireacademy.htm 

I really like Mead’s writing style and characters, both in this series and two previously mentioned, the Dark Swan series and the Georgia Kincaid series, both of which are adult series.  The Vampire Academy series are young adult but us not so young adults can enjoy it too!

Rick Riordan’s adult book series with PI Tres Navarre

I really enjoyed The Lightning Thief series so decided to pick of Riordan’s adult series.  I wasn’t able to get all of them from the library but managed to get three:

Southtown
Rebel Isle
The Devil went down to Austin

I am pretty sure that I had picked up one other previously but can’t think of the name at the moment.  The books center around a PI named Tres Navarre who lives in TX and is drawn towards trouble.  Navarre is a great character.  He has a great wit, tries not to be serious and yet is very caring.  He’s also very persistent which keeps the stories moving and interesting.  I didn’t enjoy Southtown as much as the others for some reason.  My favorite is Rebel Isle.  I found that one to be very adventurous, stressful with many questions to be answered near the end, all of which came together beautiful.  In that one he and his wife are out for their honeymoon, only to caught on an island during a hurricane with at least one murderer on the loose.  It was nicely done.  The last one, The Devil went down to Austin, was also very enjoyable with friends of Tres being mysteriously murdered and him tracking down the bad guys while getting a few arse kickings himself.

I am quite fond of this authors stories and will read more when I’m not in the middle of a good fantasy/sci-fi novel.