Maximum Ride (manga and novel)
Mar. 4th, 2011 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
booksofafeatherShort review: Experimental kids with wings have adventures! A heroic action-type story. But it feels disjointed and doesn't explain the characters very deeply, plus being winged isn't treated in a consistent manner... sometimes the people are happy to be winged, sometimes they hate it, without any feeling that they reconciled these two things or thought of them at the same time. It seems like whatever emotion they have is used to drive the plot along. Plus it treats being winged as a negative thing and an excuse for drama and emotional pain too much. I don't recommend it.
Writing: Not so good... I felt it had a clunky feeling. The book tries to have a friendly first-person style but it feels awkward. The plot is not too imaginative (in the first book anyway) and the heroes and villains are very stereotyped.
From a winged person's perspective...: There are some nice descriptions of the feeling of flight, but it's not enough to buy the book for. There's too much negativity and focusing on human as the best thing to be.
Trigger warnings: Experimentation on children, using terms like "freak" to describe non-humans
More thoughts...: If you keep up with books released for young adults you may have heard of this series. It got quite popular. I read the first manga (which is almost identical to the book in dialogue) and part of the first book... I didn't want to finish the book that much. The manga is quite nice, nothing special in story but I liked the art. It's nice to see someone else with my kind of wingspan, and it feels like they could really fly on it. The book is where it gets really frustrating though, because you actually get the narration of what the characters believe and it's not good, from a winged person's perspective anyway.
One big thing that annoyed me about it was how the characters interchanged talking about "flying is the most wonderful amazing thing ever" with calling themselves "freaks" and other negative things for having wings. I could understand if they ever discussed this, for example "I guess most people would think we're freaks, but we have this gift so it's worth it" or even "I guess we have this gift and it's beautiful, but it doesn't stop me feeling like a freak". But they simply don't examine it, which makes it seem like they experience these really amazing things but forget about it all in the next chapter when they want to be down on themselves. The book wants to have the best of both worlds, making you think it's amazing to fly but also giving the feel of a set of characters who is tortured by their differences, but it never discusses how they reconcile these things so it just feels cheap. Like this isn't a portrait of real people who feel this way, but just a collection of stereotypes about what they think someone should feel in that circumstance, or a plot device. I admit I thought the brief descriptions of how exhilarating it was to fly were very good, but because it just seemed tacked on to the characters it's hard to enjoy it really.
The second thing, though, which annoyed me even more, is the characters getting upset or frustrated that they're "not even fully human". As if human were the only good thing to be! Along with using a lot of negative words like "freaks" and such for themselves, it really felt human-centric. Even though they have these amazing abilities, they hate what they are just because it's not human. I can understand hating that you were experimented on, but you don't have to be down on non-human people. Also, the wolf people in the book are described in a really horrible and negative way. There's nothing good about them and they're just simple villains. So if you're a wolf person, stay well clear.
In general terms, I just couldn't stick with this book not even because of the wing issues, but because I didn't like the writing. The plot felt like it was all about pitting stereotyped good guys against stereotyped bad guys and never examining what it means to be good or bad. If you're on the good side it's okay to think about killing people, but the bad guys are bloodthirsty monsters with no remorse. Even the ones that aren't literally "monsters", but scientists and researchers, love to torture children... it couldn't be that they're doing it in the name of knowledge or anything... they just want to torture them. I can't really believe in that kind of plot, or feel sorry for the characters I'm supposed to feel sorry for when the story is doing its best to drive home the point of how good and innocent they are and how bad everyone else is. Some may say that I can't review a book if I gave up partway through, but with the way that it was already feeling hollow, I didn't think it would change much.
Really, out of all the books I've reviewed so far this is the worst. I'm going to try to keep reading and see what I think of the rest of it... still, I don't have much hope. If you really want to try it, I suggest you get the manga because it takes out a lot of what's annoying about it, and as a bonus, it's very well drawn. I think the novel is honestly about a one and a half out of five... the manga is a two.
Writing: Not so good... I felt it had a clunky feeling. The book tries to have a friendly first-person style but it feels awkward. The plot is not too imaginative (in the first book anyway) and the heroes and villains are very stereotyped.
From a winged person's perspective...: There are some nice descriptions of the feeling of flight, but it's not enough to buy the book for. There's too much negativity and focusing on human as the best thing to be.
Trigger warnings: Experimentation on children, using terms like "freak" to describe non-humans
More thoughts...: If you keep up with books released for young adults you may have heard of this series. It got quite popular. I read the first manga (which is almost identical to the book in dialogue) and part of the first book... I didn't want to finish the book that much. The manga is quite nice, nothing special in story but I liked the art. It's nice to see someone else with my kind of wingspan, and it feels like they could really fly on it. The book is where it gets really frustrating though, because you actually get the narration of what the characters believe and it's not good, from a winged person's perspective anyway.
One big thing that annoyed me about it was how the characters interchanged talking about "flying is the most wonderful amazing thing ever" with calling themselves "freaks" and other negative things for having wings. I could understand if they ever discussed this, for example "I guess most people would think we're freaks, but we have this gift so it's worth it" or even "I guess we have this gift and it's beautiful, but it doesn't stop me feeling like a freak". But they simply don't examine it, which makes it seem like they experience these really amazing things but forget about it all in the next chapter when they want to be down on themselves. The book wants to have the best of both worlds, making you think it's amazing to fly but also giving the feel of a set of characters who is tortured by their differences, but it never discusses how they reconcile these things so it just feels cheap. Like this isn't a portrait of real people who feel this way, but just a collection of stereotypes about what they think someone should feel in that circumstance, or a plot device. I admit I thought the brief descriptions of how exhilarating it was to fly were very good, but because it just seemed tacked on to the characters it's hard to enjoy it really.
The second thing, though, which annoyed me even more, is the characters getting upset or frustrated that they're "not even fully human". As if human were the only good thing to be! Along with using a lot of negative words like "freaks" and such for themselves, it really felt human-centric. Even though they have these amazing abilities, they hate what they are just because it's not human. I can understand hating that you were experimented on, but you don't have to be down on non-human people. Also, the wolf people in the book are described in a really horrible and negative way. There's nothing good about them and they're just simple villains. So if you're a wolf person, stay well clear.
In general terms, I just couldn't stick with this book not even because of the wing issues, but because I didn't like the writing. The plot felt like it was all about pitting stereotyped good guys against stereotyped bad guys and never examining what it means to be good or bad. If you're on the good side it's okay to think about killing people, but the bad guys are bloodthirsty monsters with no remorse. Even the ones that aren't literally "monsters", but scientists and researchers, love to torture children... it couldn't be that they're doing it in the name of knowledge or anything... they just want to torture them. I can't really believe in that kind of plot, or feel sorry for the characters I'm supposed to feel sorry for when the story is doing its best to drive home the point of how good and innocent they are and how bad everyone else is. Some may say that I can't review a book if I gave up partway through, but with the way that it was already feeling hollow, I didn't think it would change much.
Really, out of all the books I've reviewed so far this is the worst. I'm going to try to keep reading and see what I think of the rest of it... still, I don't have much hope. If you really want to try it, I suggest you get the manga because it takes out a lot of what's annoying about it, and as a bonus, it's very well drawn. I think the novel is honestly about a one and a half out of five... the manga is a two.
