TheBooky

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I AM NUMBER FOUR

Short review after the summary.

There were nine. Three are dead. I Am Number Four. 

Nine teenagers and their guardians are hiding on Earth… protected by a charm that means they can only be killed in numeric order, three are already dead. John Smith is Number Four. And his mortal enemies, the Mogadorian, are hunting him down.

The only way to keep off radar is to keep moving, never staying in one place for long. Finally in the firing line, all he can do is adopt the guise of a student and pray his unusual gifts—his legacies home; Planet Lorien—stay hidden long enough for him to settle into this new community.

But others seem to sense his otherness and when small-town life sucks him into its intrigues, it’s only a matter of time before his true nature is revealed. And that means there’s no space for love, friendship or a future if it means protecting not only himself, but the other five…

Summary from Goodreads

So, here’s what I thought:

• This book, to me, is poorly written. Some people would say, if I elaborated, that I was just hating or bashing, so I will refrain. Honestly, I don’t think I would’ve minded this book if the writing had been better. 
• I am interested in the next book only because of the other five, but I am going to wait for the second movie to come out instead. 

:( 

EDIT: Wait, I thought of something good! This book was better than the movie in the way the relationship between John and Lorien was established, through all those memory/flashback things. That was a nice touch.

If you’ve read it, what did you think of this book?

If I Stay—review after the summary. 

This review will NOT be spoiler free. 

So

There will be 

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!

Everybody got that? Okay, moving on!

In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen ­year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. Heartwrenchingly beautiful, Mia’s story will stay with you for a long, long time.

Summary from Goodreads

All right, so, here are some of my thoughts:

• I liked this book. Despite all the things I didn’t like about it, I still liked the book as whole. A lot of the reviews on Goodreads talked about how this book touches hearts and stays with the reader forever. I didn’t exactly have that experience, but it was still good one.
• I didn’t like that readers don’t get to see the accident. I admit, that would be an incredibly difficult scene to write and I’m not sure how the author would’ve done it, since the story is in first person, but I felt like I’d been cheated out of something when I realized that we would never, ever read the accident. 
• The intercutting of past and present kind of annoyed me at times, because I was so into what was going on in the present that I didn’t want to take a time-out to take a look at what her life was like before—I just wanted to know if she was going to stay. I realize that this technique was necessary because a. most of the meaningful/touching bits come from her past and b. without the past information, the author would’ve had an incredibly hard time getting the readers to care about this girl/the characters around her.
• I didn’t really like the lack of names for the parents. At least, I don’t remember them having any names. *shrug*
• The ending seems rather abrupt and I wasn’t really expecting it to end where it did. However, I quite liked the ending. 
• More things that I like? I liked all the characters except Adam (during certain parts…but at least he was real). The characters were believable and the parents were especially fleshed out. 
• The relationship between Mia and Adam was nice because it wasn’t perfect, they had problems, and yet they were still in love. 
• The integration of music in the story was good/satisfying, and I feel like it added a nice layer to the story. Almost like the characters and their lives could not be separated from music. 
• I also really liked that I could sort of imagine myself in Mia’s position and ask myself what I would do (I am still undecided) in her place. It’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a while, and I love a book that makes me think. 
• Also, the way the topic of love is handled—I liked it. ^.^

NOTE: readers would do well to remember that this is not a plot-driven story, but rather a character-driven story. As such, it is constructed with a different goal and the focus is not what happens (plot). 

Overall, I thought this was a good read. At the end of my copy of the book, there’s an excerpt from the next book, Where She Went. You get to see things from Adam’s POV in this snippet, so I bought the book. I think the second one will be better than the first because: a. you have Adam’s POV,which was quite enjoyable in the snippet and b. it deals with the aftermath of the events in the first book (which should be totally gripping and emotionally taxing, etc) and c. Mia has a body she can control (as opposed to the first novel where she was this ghost thing/spirit?)

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teachingliteracy:

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booksdirect:

Books are in my DNA.

cinderellainrubbershoes:

“Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is a proof that humans are capable of magic”

-Carl Sagan

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