"Nevermore" by James Patterson was...disappointing. To say the absolute least.
For a while there I thought that I was reading some bad fanfiction. For a while there I HOPED that I was reading some bad fanfiction. Nope. But at least now I can see why it's ages TEN and up!
The only reason that this book will even have an average rating that's over 3/5 stars is because everybody was giving it 4/5 and 5/5 stars even before they read it. Guess that's what happens when you have high expectations.
Into the meat of the review.
The lack of character development...Strange for Patterson. I feel like every character UNDEVELOPED, save for a certain un-dead person with new enhancements, Angel, and Dylan. I even think /sob/ that I lost some of my love for Fang. How does that happen? How do you stop fangirling over the one character that you've probably, for the last two or three if not more years, been the MOST fangirl-y over? I didn't think it was possible!
IMHO and mofo were included in Patterson's WIDE range of vocabulary. IMHO? MOFO? What...the...heck...Patterson? Are you fourteen now, or what?
I didn't even read the preview to his next book. I was just like - "NOPE. I've paid my dues, I've finished the only two series that I was ever invested in of his, and now I can easily leave him in the dust for actually competent authors. Yes-sir-ee."
The writing was horrendous. Worse than anything else that I think he has ever produced prior to now. The ending was...I don't even...No. It was just terrible.
The fact that the world was ending and the Flock was enjoying their time hanging out with humans, partying, chilling...It was kind of like - I need to take a step back here and reevaluate this.
Then Maya...Fang only seemed to HALF-CARE about her. Like, he was all lovey and then there was an "accident" he was like, "Oh...whatever." I don't even like Maya, and I was pissed off at how insignificant she became at that point.
DON'T FORGET THE PLOTLINE WITH THE GANG. What even happened to everybody in Fang's gang? That plotline was just completely DROPPED! ??? I mean, I didn't even like the plotline there, but a bit of closure please...
Not to mention that I came to hate all couplings by the end of the novel. I even came to dislike the Fang and Max pairing, for they were MUCH too cute-sy in this novel. Fang and Max are not good together because they are CUTE-SY. Fang and Max are good because they are harsh, and rude, and levelheaded, but also because they can level each other out. I'd think that they'd only be more-so when, you know, the end of the world was nearing. Which, throughout the entire book, it didn't feel like it really was.
I wasn't surprised about the Voice. Maybe just a little bit, for just a second, but overall, they were the ONLY person that even remotely made sense. I'd theorized about them before, and stuck with it for like the first three books, but then I hit the fourth book and was like, "Meh," and then I though about it again in "Fang," but I dismissed the idea. So. Yeah. Pretty predictable.
The prologue was MISLEADING. It was well-written, and led me to believe that there would be a bit more urgency to the book and lots more damage to the world. No. I can't even...BUT at least I started and ended this novel liking Angel. The fact that she WAS (censored so as not to spoil anything) made her even more compelling to me.
After all of these years yearning for the Voice's identity, by mid-point in this book, I didn't even really care. I wanted the torture over with.
When I started the book, I had disliked everybody suddenly. Even-kind-of Fang. Even Total. Even Max (well, I never liked her much...) Even - sort of - Iggy. At the end of the book...I still disliked them. Even more than previously.
And the Iggy/Ella action. A SENTENCE WHEN THEY HUG. A SENTENCE WHEN THEY HUG. I'm not even that into the Iggy/Ella action, but PATTERSON? You cheated your fans there, buddy.
He really should have killed off Dylan. Really. But Dylan's transformation for, like, the last twenty pages of the book up to the last part where he becomes everybody's, like, "savior," I was rooting for him, I think. He went from pretty-boy to I'll-do-what-I-want boy. I think, in fact, it made him better...It made him able to stand alone as a person, and accept stuff.
Another thing - The Flock was treating the end of the world like Mardi Gras! Going to SCHOOL, conversing with NORMAL PEOPLE WHO KNEW THEIR SECRETS, CELEBRATING things! Meanwhile, Fang was off getting his butt kicked! He almost died - TWICE - before meeting up with the Flock. When he arrived, did they worry? NOPE. They PARTIED. Also, in one part Iggy went - "The end of the world?" Max, in return, said "Yeah, same old, same old," with a grin. Excuse me, but...this is NOT exactly a 'joking matter.' What book are you even a part of anymore, Max-y, because it's not this one?
Max needed to make up her mind. "I loveeeeeeeeeeee him. But...I don't know!" Kissing Dylan one day, Fang the next. I'D even be emotionally stressed from that, if I were either one of the boys!
I laughed out loud when Max, at the beginning of the novel, was talking about how Dylan had kissed her in the rain at the top of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris at sunset previous to this novel, because the number of things that Fang did for her - LIKE SAVING HER LIFE NUMEROUS TIMES AND ALWAYS BEING THERE FOR HER - Didn't...seem...to...matter...anymore?
Also, I LOVE how they just automatically assumed that Angel was dead from the end of the last book. -___-
I made a note at one point, just kind of summing up the beginning of the novel (and it would go on to summarize the rest of it) - "THIS IS SO WRONG. SUCH A BAD ENDING NOVEL, SUCH A BAD BEGINNING TO AN ENDING NOVEL. TERRIBLE. THINGS ARE NORMAL??? This is a simulation or something, right? James Patterson's going to be all like, `JK!'"
There was also the bit where Fang was in the sleeping bag with Maya (CLOTHED, THANK YOU,) and he felt guilty, and I was just like - "DAMN RIGHT YOU FEEL GUILTY. Even YOU'RE sub-par in this book!" Because it was/is true. ALTHOUGH I did like the part when Maya was hurt and all like, "I love you," and Fang was like, "...I know..." but he never said the words back, MEANING MEANING MEANING that he probably didn't actually love her and realized it in that moment.
Then I went on to note that Patterson is the equivalent of Moffat as a novelist, but the difference is that Moffat knows a good plot and can write one.
My favorite character award HAS to go to the random guy at school who saw all of the girls crowding around winged Dylan and went, "I'm gonna have to get some wings." He was the only one who didn't piss me off. Thank you, random stranger, for giving me a few seconds of sanity.
Patterson was absolutely ORIGINAL, as always, in naming his newly-founded doomsday group. The Apocalypticas, also known as the 99 Percenters. GOOD JOB. Because my doomsday group would have JUST as stupid of a name!
I love one comment in which I wrote - "I may start to cry tears...of blood. This novel is terrible."
I even made this one note on my Kindle - "James Patterson, you will die if I do not get my money's worth...I swear it." I didn't get my money's worth. At all. But I'll settle for killing him off in my mind. Brutally.
I'm still disappointed that Dylan and Maya WEREN'T evil (I don't count this as a spoiler, because...well...Everybody knew that there was a, like, .0000001% margin of chance for it to even be that they were.)
When Max started sobbing into Dylan's shirt and he was all like, `You don't have to be strong all the time,' I was like, STOP IT. STOP IT ALREADY. MAX, YOU STOP CRYING, DYLAN, YOU START FLYING OFF TO WHEREVER YOU WANT YOUR LITTLE CRY-FEST TO BE, BUT YOU TWO BREAK IT UP. Because they totally "broke character," you could say, in this part...They weren't even ACTING LIKE THEIR OWN CHARACTERS.
The dialogue was more unrealistic than ever, in truth. I rolled my eyes at 99.9999999(repeating)% of it.
And nobody else foresaw the end-Jeb, whether he would become good or bad...? Like, nobody saw him being what he was in the end? Okay, then...Just me. But it was pretty blatant.
When Max made the FANG/DYLAN compare and contrast sheet, I was just like, "HERE WE GO." The thing was, she was basically really focusing on the pessimistic things about Fang and the optimistic things about Dylan. For Fang, she noted that she "doesn't know how to act around him anymore." Well, your fault honey. Your fault. But it's time to make a DECISION ALREADY. Seriously, you're being worse than Bella Swan...
I appreciate how even Max was evaluating how pitiful and low-life she was at one point in the book. When the character themself can acknowledge that, however...That's just sad.
The ONE SCENE, the ONE SCENE that I would have spent $1.50 on the book for at the max, was the Fang/Max scene where he's just like, `We need to talk. About you. And me." Followed by everything else that happens between them. I'd probably pay another $1.50 for the scene where Dylan goes insane after seeing them. But seriously - Dylan was going, like, suicidal. Not to the point of suicide, but...to the point of physically harming himself. And I was just like - WAIT A MINUTE HERE. THIS IS RANDOM, THIS IS NOT GOOD, THIS IS BAD, PATTERSON, NO. This is NOT how you do character development!
PATTERSON RIPPED OFF HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. Thought I'd mention it in case nobody else caught that. Fang was all like, "I heard a Voice, Max," and then said it told him to find her. WHAT? NO. I saw this in The Deathly Hallows, no need for me to see it again.
LET'S PLAY THE FINISH DYLAN'S SENTENCES GAME NOW.
"Not spying, just seeing..." he notes. I finish with - "Not STALKING, just...BYSTANDING."
The thing that enraged me the most about this book? Oh, let's see. How about the fact that the reason that Max was preparing for everything, the reason that everybody WANTED FANG TO KILL OR EXPERIMENT ON, was the most IDIOTIC REASON...EVER. It didn't even make sense! What? How does that even fit in with anything...? It felt totally and completely random.
And the ending. That ending was utter and complete...well, I want to keep this review kid friendly. It was just terrible. I thought that I was going to cry when I got to the last page and it was done...Half of joy for being over with it, half out of sadness for the fact that I felt like my childhood had been ruined in the course of one 370-some paged novel.
Patterson ruined everything. Even Fang. Even Fax. I...I just...feel like my childhood's gone up, up, up, into eternal flames.
I actually...almost...wish that Fax hadn't happened. Not this way. But Fax...became all about cuteness. And not about...being strong. Being complimentary to one another.
So, in short, I don't know what the hell I was thinking in spending...nay, WASTING...my $10.00 pre-ordering this and then staying up all morning (1:00am - 4:00am EST) reading it, because frankly, I already had my low expectations, as after the third book everything had gone downhill by a LOT. This was just a new kind of bad, though. Even for Patterson, it was just...wow. I'd say that it rivals Twilight in writing. And maybe how badly the romance was written. Otherwise, it was better than Twilight in dynamic, just...not delivered well.
Off to make a meme that says, "I eat whitecoats for breakfast." If you haven't already, don't buy the book. It's a waste of your time and money.
