Maximum Ride Was a Book Series That Should Have Been a Trilogy, in this essay I will...
...justify my anger with the later books, along with discuss topics and personal gripes/what I would have done to make it better.
First things first. I will be bringing up my general gripes with the books appear in the first book. Specifically, the way situations were handled. For example, TAE, there is, in all honesty, not much to do with the name. The first half of the book, includes them trying to rescue Angel, but very little focuses on Angel, so much as every one around her. The second half has pretty much jack shit to do with the title.
On extension of that, the of whole second book, Schools Out-Forever, very little had to do with school or Anne Walker’s house. Not only that, but what we have is poorly handled. Max and Fang are the oldest and, thus, parents to the others. Everyone should be both much more hesitant with Anne and far more nervous about school
My third thing is lack of focus on appearances. These are kids who should have multitudes of physical and emotional scars. Show that. Shit, man, they’re not human. Show me kids who are scared of tight spaces, and nervous around dogs, and have all sorts of weird scars on their faces and hands and feathers decorating the tops of their shoulders and their necks. They’re a new thing. Don’t let me forget that.
My next gripe is an extension of that. Please give me something of a defined character description, so as to not surprise me when Iggy’s redhead.
Another complaint is the abilities. In general, leave it at flight, the strength needed for that, and senses (because they were built to be weaponry). It’s less complicated.
Finally, before we get into the point of this, Gazzy’s name. I don’t care who you are, or how bad that kid’s farts smell, “Gasman” is a horrible and dehumanizing name. You suck.
Alright. Now all my preamble bullshit is out of the way, lets get down to business.
TFW. It sucks. It’s unnecessary. When I first read the series the only book I read after was MRF. I was fine. To say anything on it, all of the kids, aside from Max, develop abilities that are never spoken of again. Aside from Total growing wings, almost none of TFW is in anyway talked about again. What was the point, aside from promoting an environmental message (not a bad thing)?
Max. Oh, good Lord, the airshows, Dr. M, gets kidnapped, the Navy, the weirdo creatures in the sea... If I had been introduced to the book series now through this book rather than when I was nine, I would have lost interest. What a load of bullshit. Dr. Brigid Dwyer being evil and presumably dropping off the face of the Earth. Fuck off. By the way, did you notice how silly Nudge is painted for wanting something totally reasonable?
Fang. They start off doing charity. Fine. But there are so many things that are just never explained. Like the little girl being evil, or the people disappearing. Or Angel being prophetic. Also we meet the final villain here. Also I think this is the book where we find out Dr. Chew is a lizard boy. Named Robert. Who never gets brought up again. But, hey, forced love triangle. And splitting up twice, despite having previously agreed not to do that. Twice.
Angel. I’ve read this one the least, but Dylan is uncharacteristically an ass. And I love Kate, Star, Holden, Maya, and Ratchet, but Fang’s Gang is bullshit. Fact. And there’s something to do with Paris, yadda yadda, Angel’s dead but not really. Honestly it’s hard to keep track of who’s died and who hasn’t. And there is some more forced love triangle going on.
Nevermore. Ari’s not dead and no one’s surprised. Maya dies. Fang rejoins the Flock. They get Angel back. Dylan’s dead but not really. And they have an island now. And we end with them sorta drowning. And Angel’s the Voice.
Maximum Ride-Forever. There is no timeframe. Every death involved is either shock value and, aside from two cases, repaired, or to tie up loose ends. We get no context for how Angel can do anything (telepathy, reading the future). They split up again.
The Phoenix plotline gets a paragraph to itself. It’s not hard to imagine Max and Fang having kids together, especially if their relationship is handled right. It’s also not hard to guess that those to have little enough sex ed to get pregnant, after people who are far more experienced also have slippups like that, that result is pregnancy. Give me more fear. She’s fifteen and pregnant and thinks the father of her baby is dead. In an apocalypse, no less. Give me that. There was no emotion attached, beyond brief snippets. I call bullshit. The current way it is written doesn’t read really emotional enough, and you have to handle things right. Also beyond Max and Angel talking briefly, Max expresses no real doubt. I’m around Max’s age and I babysit plenty, I would be fucking terrified if I got pregnant. There needs to be so much more fear and worry.
I’ll write up a post later about my opinions on the way Fax should have been handled to make it not creepy.
