Customer Reviews

The Lake House

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(48)
1 star:		(198)

 

 

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.

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.

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. Android 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

I can't believe I wasted money on this tripe. I was recovering from surgery and desperate for reading material, so I picked this book from the best seller list. What a disaster...horrible writing, non-existent plotting, inane dialogue, unreal characters. I laughed all the way through it though the author didn't intend it to be funny. The characters seemed to magically get out of situations with no explanation...for example, Max, the bird girl, is shot, and two scenes later she turns up fine, completely healed from her wounds after somehow (again not explained) crawling into an air duct in front of the bad guys' eyes. What!?!?! I kept checking the level of my pain pills, thinking I'd somehow overdosed. I only kept on reading because I was fascinated by its badness...like a train wreck I couldn't keep my eyes off it.

I've never read this author and never will again. If I had to chose between re-reading it and more abdominal surgery, I'd have to think about it.

Words can't begin to express the hatred I have for this book. From the large print, double spaced 2 page chapters that stretch this to 376 pages to the 970 gazillion exclamation marks (!!) to the stupid one word sentences. (oh. my. god. this. book. sucks.) I have liked Patterson before but will definitely read a review of his next book before I pick it up (obviously I didn't do that this time). If there were a way to give a book a negative star rating, I would have.

I read When the Wind Blows and thought it was okay. A quick, interesting read, if not an especially smart book. I couldn't stand dim-wit Frannie, but the mystery of the School and what was being done to children there kept me turning the pages. The ending, however, left me wondering if the bird-children would find happiness with their families after everything they'd been through.

The Lake House opens at a custody trial that would NEVER happen in real life... dim-wit Frannie and her lover Kit are attempting to take the children from their biological parents, despite the fact that there is NO relation between the unmarried couple and the children AND that they're only known the kids a matter of months! There's absolutely no legal arguement for them to be granted custody, and sadly, this inplasibility sets the tone for the rest of the novel... a novel that, although it's called the Lake House, spend about ten minutes in the titular location.

The custody trial that would never happen is taking place because the bird-kids have collectively decided that their biological parents don't deserve the priviledge of raising their special little selves... and brace yourself, because you're in for several hundred pages of being told over and over and over how smart, witty, adorable, perfect, and delightfuI these children are. Meanwhile, what we SEE of the children shows us a handful of snotty little creeps supremely convinced that they're better than the rest of humanity. NOTHING that they do, say, write, or think would lead one to suspect their "genius" IQ levels or genetic superiority. I cringed through all the dialog and was embarrassed for the sixty-something male writer trying to capture the voice of a 12-year-old girl. (He fails miserably.)

I hated the character of dim-wit Frannie in the first book, and if anything, she regresses in this novel, speaking and thinking in little-girl talk and endlessly worrying about whether or not Kit wuvs her, then endlessly adoring and pining over the bird-kids.

The mysteries of the first book are reharshed in this one, only this time they're altogether silly: a scientist with multiple perfect clones of himself? And a robot wife lifted directly out of the Stepford Wives? Gross.

And speaking of gross, we're also treated a sixty-something male writer creating scenes of 12-year-old children having sex. But, he assures us through baby-talk dialog, the children are part bird and therefore really-actually adults! I didn't buy it, and neither will you. Again, gross.

I don't plan to read anything else by this writer, as this was the biggest waste of time and words I've ever read.

I don't understand why everyone hates this book. While it's definatly not Pattersons best I think it was an interesting follow up to When the Wind Blows, which is my favorite book. It may be less believable then When the Wind Blows but it's enough to keep the pages turning.

The story continues the tale of the bird children - beautiful children with super powers and the ability to fly. They escape the School. They are reunited with Frannie and Kit. They are chased by the Bad Guys. They uncover a lab deep in the bowels of Liberty Hospital where sci fi things are going on. They get captured. They escape. All is well. End of story. Who cares?

I love to read James Patterson and have read every one of his books. That said, I have to say that this is the worst book he's ever written. It was boring, juvenile (it could be a teen book), simple, poor, transparent plot - I came very close to not finishing it - something I rarely do.

I kept thinking that James Patterson had his teenager try his hand at writing.... Or, that he was tired and hired someone else to write the book..... What I don't want to think is that this is the best we can expect from him in the future.

What more can I say? This novel is a sequel to "When The Wind Blows," a Patterson work that I enjoyed. This, however, was a very poor follow-up to that wonderful novel.

It opens in front of a courthouse in Colorado--where a custody hearing is soon to be taking place. At odds are the biological parents of the "flying kids" and Frannie, that very likeable veterinarian and Kit, her FBI lover. Although one cannot help but sympathize with the childrens' natural parents, it is clear that they have "imprinted" (as birds do,) upon Frannie and Kit, and regard them as their "real" mother and father. The judge, however, sees differently and rules to return the kids to their natural parents. Everything goes relatively smoothly, until masked men arrive at the home of Max and Matthew in an attempt to spirit them away. Both escape, and run of course to Frannie, who in turn calls estranged lover Kit.

It soon becomes clear that Max, the "matriarch" of the flock is in possession of information that puts all of the kids in danger, and it is necessary to get to the others before they are also visited by evil men with equally bad intentions.

The story moves slowly, with flights at night, multiple escapes from marauding strangers, and way too much avian insight to be believable. When Max finally shares the dangerous information that she knows with Kit, Frannie, and the others, the storyline becomes suspiciously reminiscent of its predecessor--but decidedly more slow.

It is clear from the ending that Mr. Patterson intends to have us visit the bird children at least once more; let's hope that his third attempt is more laudible.

DYB

I have read, conservatively, 500 books in my life. From Michener, King, Irving, Vonnegut, Steinbeck, Robert Louis Stevenson, Doulglas Adams, and Lundlum to first time novelists. Classics, Science Fiction, war stories, love stories, satire, farces, historical novels, short stories, you name it. This could be the worst book I have ever read. It is a narritive not a story. Poor character development, no plot twists. Very little reference to anything about a lake house. It is mentioned a few times when the bird kids whine about how they used to live there (presumbably in the prequel to this book). That is it. What a disappointment.