This was recommended to me by my brother, who is 14. He has all the Maximum Ride books and claims that they are "the best books ever". On testing week I knew I was going to have tons of time after I finished so I might as well give it a try.
Maximum Ride is about a 14 year old girl who takes care of her family (but they're not actually related). And yes, Maximum Ride is a girl. I read 80 pages before I realized that and was extremely confused. Her other "siblings" are all of various ages that are younger than her. I will not bother to list their names. Anyway, these are special children because they are part avian and have wings (along with other special talents). They are on their own because they don't know who their parents are and their caretaker, Jeb, is gone. They spend most of the novel escaping from Erasers, wolf-like human creations, and other mildly important events.
I was not a huge fan of this story. The writing was too juvenile and sarcastic for me. Also the author would switch from first-person to third person in different chapters, WHICH IS NOT ALLOWED. Writers should not do that. The chapters were an average of 3 pages long. 3 PAGES. That is hardly long enough to be considered a chapter. I really struggled to get through this book and only continued to read it to tell my brother that I read it. The plot was alright, I felt like it didn't really go anywhere and none of my questions got answered. The imagination behind the story is very interesting, but not the most imaginative that I have read.
I would probably recommend this to my 5th or 6th grade self, but now my reading level is far beyond this series. If you are 10-13, give it a try! You'll definitely have more luck with it than I did. I will not be reading the other books in the series. 3 out of 5 stars.
