So I actually finished a book today! This is rare for me, because I come home with 2-7 books every time I look for "a" book, and then I never have time to finish them all. Generally, I don't find any good books anyway.
But now, being the librarian aid in school, I have a feeling my two books I've already found myself checking out will go up to twenty before the end of the semester. And I might finish five. xD
So, for the last few days I've been reading the book, "I Am Number Four." The movie came out a few months ago, and when I saw the ad I was hooked. Unfortunately, we never got around to seeing it. When I was wandering through the library the other day, though, I ended up finding the book, which I figured was the next best thing, if not better. So I checked it out myself (that's the advantage to working there XD) and began to read it.
I started the book knowing the movie, according to rumors, had been awful. But I tried it out anyway, knowing books are 99.9% better than the movie. At first, the book seemed promising. The first half covered the main character, named John/Number Four, who's an alien from a planet that was destroyed by another alien race. He and 8 others had been on the run from the other alien race for maybe 10 years. Three of them had already been killed, and John was next in line. This meant that he and his father-figure, Henri, were constantly on the run, avoiding the other aliens to the extreme.
It doesn't sound like a bad book when this is all you hear. But the rest of the book was basically John/Number Four trying to cope with his alien powers and his love story with his human-girlfriend (already creepy) named Sarah. Generally, I'm a hopeless romantic. But although sex never occurred (miraculously) in this book, John was too devoted to his girlfriend and not to his own alien race's survival. I guess you can't expect much more from a 16 year-old boy. But still.
Also, the book's sentences felt forced to me, meaning the words did not flow together. When I (or authors I admire) write, the sentence structure varies from a very short sentence, to long, complicated sentences. However, this author used short sentences more often than not, especially if it was supposed to be an intense scene. This in itself distracted me from the story.
Furthermore...the book felt cliche-like. Popular-jock hates John who falls in love with the jock's ex. It sounds like a High School love story, and last I knew, the book was supposed to be science-fiction. I know other kids my age like the High School stories, but I really don't. They bore me in their, "I'm not popular; I'm going to become popular; I'm popular!" story-line that takes place in almost every book. Either that, or the story-line goes, "I like this girl; I gotta get this girl; we're dating! Yay!".
I hear these things every day at school. Get me something new, please.
However, I make it sound like this book was awful. It was, to some extent. But I haven't totally given up on the next five books in the series. Only one of the five, book two, is out as of now, so I'll be getting it from the library soon, hopefully, and expecting a much better story-line. Thankfully, I have a feeling John's girlfriend will be out of the way more. :D We'll see how the book turns out...
Anyway, I'm off!
~Kathy
