The Lake House [Livre audio] [Anglais] [CD]

Although this book is a very fast read, there is nothing new in this sequel to When the Wind Blows. Once again the kids are being stalked, and Frannie and Kit are trying to save them from the evil Dr. Kane. The ending is just plain silly. If you must read this, save your money and get this from the library or wait for the paperback. Bring back the Alex Cross books as these are Patterson at his best.

Note to James Patterson: Clearly label your sequels. I did not know this was a sequel until I read it here - after I'd already listened to it. I looked again - there is no mention that it is a sequel anywhere.

Well, this book stinks on many more levels than just poor packaging and labeling.

108 chapters - that must make the printed version of this book quite beefy with all of the extra paper. For me, it meant a new chapter every 4 minutes.

Not only is the book poorly paced (nearly an hour of the 7 1/2 hour book is all about two of the characters' first sexual experiences), but it left out information and had fits and starts. For example, the children all "run" away to live in the woods and eat grubs. Next thing you know, they're back without any sort of explanation. I listen to a lot of books on tape and many of them are abridged so I am used to odd fits and starts by poor editing. I checked the packaging several times while listening to this book to see if it was abridged - The herky-jerky nature of the book cannot be blamed on poor editing during the process of abridgement.

Technical things made the book just seem silly like:

-the smoke detector that goes off only after the house is up in flames struck me as stupid. Just this morning 2 fire alarms went off in my house because a toaster waffle got a bit burned.

-How about the Subaru that holds 8 people, including 6 of them with wings?

-Why does the bad guy want the kids so badly. He keeps mentioning them as a source of money, but how much money does this guy need? He just performed 30 surgeries at the rate of $100 million each. That's $3 billion!

-If you were going to fight a winged person with a 10 foot wingspan and superhuman strength would you bring a gun? a big knife? Well, the genius supervillain brings a scalpel!

-How about the bemoaning of the fact that no one was talking about the Resurrection project in the media but than it is brought out in testimony during the custody trial of the century and no one questions it because they knew all about it?

-Can you measure IQ when someone is asleep? No, but the evil genius does anyway.

-Hey - if you are going to write sci-fi get your terms right! Clones are not robots. Robots are not made of flesh. Cyborg is the term you were looking for. Get the terminology right or don't use it, please!

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This book is bad, especially when compared to other works by Patterson, such as any of the early Alex Cross books. Patterson needs to have an editor really jump all over him and demand the better quality that he is capable of.

My grade: F

The only decent thing about this book is that I got it from my library. Had I actually purchased this book, I would be livid. All we want as readers is to read a book in which the author "tried." If I read Ollie North's book or Kyle Mills' book and I don't like the content, really I have only myself to blame. They're trying. I know what I'm getting into.

If I read Follett or Koontz or Patterson, when time after time in recent years they have shown me they just mail it in, I'm the fool.

Bird children. OK. I grew up in the '60's. I saw Mothra and Godzilla. So I'll take a crack at bird-kids.

Bird kids that have sex? No that's too much. Bird kids that kill? No, I'll pass.

Jumping from one ambush to another? How do they do it? So much wasted dialogue and so few (if any explanations). How do the hunters know where the prey are? How do they find them? They're genius birds, after all. The adults speak like children ("Hugs and Kisses. Hugs and kisses. Coo Coo Coo.") And the children speak like no child I ever heard. The plot is unbelievable. The interconnecting scenes without bridges. The conversations without any basis in reality, suspended or actual. The facts are MIA. In the second to the last scene the characters we have come to love (or rather just put up with) are facing certain death. In the next scene, they are free! This is not David Copperfield. How did he do that?

Huge enormous collossal waste of time.