Customer Reviews

Saving the World (Maximum Ride, Book 3)

5 star:		(87)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I am a sixth grade teacher in Orem, Utah and my students have fallen in love with the Maximum Ride books. I have been a long time fan of Patterson's adult fiction and always thought my students would love his quick page turning style. I was right. When Max 1 came out a couple years ago it quickly became their favorite. I wrote to James and commented on my students' love for Max and the gang so he sent me an advanced reader's copy of Max 2. It was a great lesson to my kids that authors care about their audience. It helped increase their love for the stories and, ultimately, reading. Max 3 came out this May with only a day left of school, so we held a read-aloud-a-thon and read Max 3 for the entire school day. We ended up about 3/4 of the way through and the students were screaming when they had to go home (a teacher's dream). The books are wonderful for kids who do not like books. I have had dozens of students begin a love for reading all different books as a result of Maximum Ride. I cannot thank James Patterson enough for inspiring kids to love reading!

What a ride! I'm an adult with teenagers and I often read what they read. This book is a great ride. It's written mostly in the first person with down-to-earth street language (minus the curse words) which works well. By the middle of the book you find yourself convinced that the mutant characters could exist; their world is real. We can't wait till the rest in the series comes in the mail!

So far, I've had fun with this series. I was able to put aside its simplicity and just go along for the ride. Sadly, the series has just gone downhill with each subsequent book and I find myself wondering if buying the next book is worth the price.

In Maximum Ride book three, Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports, Patterson attempts to move toward a climax and resolution that don't really come. I think the biggest reason behind this is due to the fact that the series was originally intended to be a trilogy. However, due to its popularity it was expanded to include five books and potentially more -yet, there simply wasn't enough conflict set up in the first few books to make the series last that long.

In Saving the World, Max and the flock continue the search for their origins and go after the evil company Itex. Itex created them and plans to kill off the human race and replace it with genetically superior equivalents. In the meantime, Max and Fang develop romantic feelings for one another. The progression of this feels normal, but is somewhat disappointing when the flock splits up after Max and Fang's argument over whether or not a supposedly reformed Ari should join them.

Fang also expands on his blog, which he uses to help mobilize children and teens to his cause. What's his cause? Stopping global warning. Yes, apparently the entire point of "saving the world" deals with stopping global warning and/or cleaning up the earth. This comes entirely out of left field and makes the novel seem like some kind of environmentalist propaganda meant to brainwash young people into bringing down corporations for polluting the earth. In my opinion, this moves the book far past cheesy and into ridiculous.

Even though Max does find out who her parents are, it seems to be throw in as an afterthought because there is little to no build-up about it and the entire thing seems far too easy. I was particularly disappointed by the fact that Max didn't even save the world...as she's been trying to ever since the beginning. This made it seem like the book went nowhere while trying to tie up plot points from the first two books and still keeping it open for sequels.

If you've been reading the Maximum Ride series up to this point, Saving the World is worth reading a summary, but you may want to think before putting down your hard-earned money to buy this.

P.S. I officially am done with the Maximum Ride series and will never read anything else in it.

I could praise this book in so many ways. Max is even more likeable now, and I'm glad that Fang's blog is actually part of the book as more than just a little extra, and I found some parts that were absolutely hilarious (everything with ter Borcht in it, basically).

This book is so wonderful. Just as good as the rest of the series, and I am so sad that it's over. I am definitely going to find some more James Patterson books...

Fifth novel overall about these characters and the third aimed at the young adult market this book shows Patterson has just plain run out of ideas and doesn't even fully develop the ones he did come up with as to what to do with these kids with wings. Don't pay money for this, borrow it from your library to avoid maximum disappointment of both the storyline and throwing away your heard earned cash!

In this adventure Max and Fang are having relationship issues, even though neither seems to want to admit their feelings for one another. They haven't seen any Erasers for a while and some of the flock just want to settle down and forget about saving the world. Scientists have been given orders to terminate these winged failures and they've got some cyborg Flyboys with instructions to bring them back to The School. Meanwhile an evil dictator residing in Europe has plans for mass genocide that make Hitler look like a choir boy that when successful will reduce the world's population by half. Of course the voice in Max's head keeps telling her only she can save the world!

This book starts off extremely slow with the entire part of Part One "In Search of Hot Chocolate Chip Cookies" pretty much just being Max rehashing the first two Young Adult books resulting in you the reader pretty much just going, come on get on with it! Great young adult (and even junior) fiction like any good PG movie should be just as enjoyable to adults as well. The first novel in the Young Adult series wasn't that much different writing wise to the two adult adventures, the second was more like your usual young adult novel but Patterson seems to struggle as to which target market he is writing for with this book with parts reading like a junior fiction book. This novel spends more time with Max trying to make wise cracks then actually having a storyline. At the end not much has happened, not much is resolved (obviously Patterson is leaving the option for more books in the series) and the reader is left feeling pretty unsatisfied. The reader is forced to believe in massive coincidences when it comes to Max's parentage.

The first book of this series was pretty good, the second no where near that quality and after this disaster I won't be continuing the ride when the fourth novel comes out.

I know this book is written for a younger audience, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first 2 installments. Now that I've read the third I WISH I HAD NEVER GOTTEN STARTED! There are so many things that are left hanging or "closed" in nonsensical ways!

(1) We never find out how the flock was being tracked.
(2) The whole business with Max's Mom/Dad ended way too unsatisfying -- just boom, now we know and everybody hugs and is happy even though BOTH Mom & Dad should have had some accountability.
(3) The whole betrayal by Jeb is turned into (what?) some kind of under-the-radar helping the flock?
(4) Angel can read minds, but never can or does at the crucial moment of deciding whether we can trust someone. Why not?
(4a) Contrary to some other reviews I thought Ari's "turn" was well done and believable, but why couldn't Angel just confirm one way or the other?
(4b) Why couldn't she figure out what was going on with Jeb right off and let everybody know?
(5) Fang somehow manages to hack into the systems of these super-secret corporations even though Nudge isn't around. Did I miss something?
(6) Angel's being a traitor and then resolving itself is WAY too simplistic. What? "Oh, I forgot to mention this to the rest of the flock." Either there needs to be a reason for it being so secretive or it would have been shared with the rest.
(7) You have these super-enhanced robotic fly-boys that are designed to beat anything and (a) the flock can fight them about 10-1 and (b) when a child throws a rock over a wall and hits one suddenly it sits down and doesn't move anymore.
(8) The whole thing of kids the world over being able to violently overthrow high security installations is a bit of a stretch.
(9) Would have been nice to see better closure on the whole Itex thing. I suppose we can imagine, but it just felt too rushed.
(..) I could go on and on.

I liked the style continued with the earlier books. The romance with Fang went very nicely and believably. The split of the flock showed some change in the characters which I thought enhanced the book.

The series has been a really fun read, but for me much of a book is based on the ending. You can't have a great series of books which ends on a completely inconsistent and rushed note and not have the whole series judged negatively.

Sorry, I really wish I had never started the series.

i always was excited throughout this whole book! there was not one single part that was boring!!!! this is a must read for all tweens and teens!!!! there is something for everyone in this book! romance, humor, action, adventure, etc.

this book is a best out of all i read i cant wait for the next

Loved this 3rd book in the Series,just finished the 5th one last night.
Great series, not just for kids. we have imagination until we die..Loved them

i absolutely loved this book! if you have read the other books, then this one will blow you away. it's that awesome. -Nadia