TITLE: Nevermore
AUTHOR: James Patterson
SERIES: Maximum Ride #8
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RATING:
Maximum Ride and her faithful friends stand ready to face the two greatest threats that humankind has ever known--now combining forces in an unbeatable plot to destroy life as we know it once and for all. And this time, the enemy truly can't be stopped. The danger mounts just as the boy genetically engineered to be her "perfect match", Dylan, has finally worked his way into Max's heart--and just as her beloved Fang unexpectedly returns to the flock. An explosive confrontation between the two boys with a claim to Max's heart ensues, and the entire world hangs in the balance.
In this powerful and moving latest sequel in James Patterson's epic fantasy series, fans will finally get the answers they've been waiting for--and an ending full of shock, surprises, and the greatest conclusion you never saw coming.
“Review”:
I’m going to tell you right now that I started writing this post with every intention of reviewing Nevermore like I would any other book. That being said, it has kind of turned into a rant of how the Maximum Ride series has been going downhill with every book with bonus bits and pieces of a review. ?
Do you know the feeling when the moment you have been waiting for over a year happens? That feeling has had a lot of time to build; there was a long time for the excitement to amplify. For over a year, many readers have been eagerly waiting for the arrival of the “last” book of the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson. However, since February, that feeling of excitement and anticipation has died down, for me, at least.
In Angel, the second to last book in the series, James Patterson stated that the last book would come out in February of 2012. That date came and went, with the news that the publication date had been moved back six months. Instead, Nevermore, the eighth and final book of Maximum Ride would be published on August 6, 2012. No explanation for the delay was ever given.
Right from that moment when the unexpected delay happened, I had a feeling that Nevermore wasn’t going to be the epic ending everybody wanted, and the one that everyone hoped would happen. In my opinion, the series has been somewhat like an unsatisfying rollercoaster ride. The first book, The Angel Experiment, was like the first part of the ride, climbing up higher and higher. The next five books were other parts of the ride, the drops, and the loops. In Angel, the whole first part of the ride becomes more and more irrelevant (Actually, that started to happen near the end of Fang, the sixth book, but it had a great ending). The more of Angel I read, the more apparent it was to me that the series was starting to go downhill. Nevermore just helped prove my point.
No matter how great and how awesome the first 5 or 6 books in the series are, a disheartening Angel and a vastly disappointing and even worse Nevermore would be what everyone remembers about the series. I think James Patterson tried too hard to create an ending no one would see coming. It ended up a disaster, but kudos to him for trying – I really didn’t see that ending coming.
Needless to say Nevermore was not what I wanted, or what I hoped would happen. James Patterson has said over and over again that Nevermore would be the last Maximum Ride book to be written. But in reality, with the epilogue, there should be another book. There wasn’t a good closure for the series – it left too many questions unanswered. Maximum Ride should have ended when it was at its climax, instead of being dragged out for so long. That way, maybe devoted fans of the series could have gotten the epic finale of a brilliant and awe-inspiring series deserved.
In Conclusion…
I was greatly disappointed in Nevermore. I was looking for a book to revive my love and appreciation of the Maximum Ride series, but instead, it did the opposite and dragged my opinion of the series downwards. I felt like James Patterson tried too hard to create a surprising ending and it backfired. It was not a good ending for the series. At all. I only recommend you read Nevermore if you have to see how James Patterson envisioned the end of the series. Otherwise it will just ruin your perception of a good series even more.
I first started reading the Maximum Ride series in 2012 – and also finished it the same year. I was 19 then, so reading these primarily MG books was a very different experience for me.
I was already disappointed in the series by book three and whenever it was that Angel developed the ability to breathe underwater, I didn’t think it could be redeemed.
Nevermore was by far the worst in the series though and I decided that by the time the Max clone (I’ve forgotten her name) died. Since Nevermore I’m super hesitant to recommend the series to anyone. It’s just a huge mess in my opinion especially because it had SO much potential! Why is it things you have the most hope for hurt you the most?
I totally agree. After the third book, the whole series just kind of kept going downhill and Nevermore was just the worst. Not only did it have so much potential, I had really high expectations for it… I really wanted the series to go out with a bang but instead we got… that.
Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
[…] long ago, okay so maybe it was only three years ago, I read Nevermore and I hated it. I gave it a one star review. It was that bad. It was a horrifying ending to a series that I loved. One that had already started […]