06 June 2011
REVIEW: I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore
I am number fourISBN #: 978-0-06-196955-3
Publisher Name: HarperCollins/ HarperCollins Teen
Date Released: August 2010
Genre: YA/Paranormal
Book Format: Print.
Nine of use came here. We look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We can do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having. We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books – but we are real.
But they know.
They caught Number One in Malaysia.
Number Two in England.
And Number Three in Kenya.
They killed them all.
I am Number Four.
I am next.
Boring, but sci-fi.
FIRST LINES:
The door starts shaking.
LYNETTE'S TWO CENTS:
When I picked up I AM NUMBER FOUR I didn’t know it was written by James Frey under a different name. I picked the book up from my library because I knew it was a movie and I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie. Someone on Twitter told me when I mentioned I was about to read it. Sometimes, I have my head in the sand and I’m not familiar with what’s going on with the world (my children tend to suck all the cells out of my brain and I can tell you what’s going on with Dora than what’s going on in the world). I know James Frey had a lot of drama about his so called autobiography. I never read any of the books. I knew they were Oprah books and I tend to run the other way. I was never a big Oprah watcher and only started watching her last season sporadically when the topic caught my eyes, so I’m not into the in and outs of the scandal.
Just thought I’d put that out there. So, I decided to go ahead and read I AM NUMBER FOUR since I already had the book in hand. I figure if it didn’t pull me in, I’ll just stop reading and use the author as an excuse for not finishing.
I loved I AM NUMBER FOUR. Loved this book.
John Smith and his handler have been running and hiding since they first arrived on Earth. Their planet was taken over by a group of beings who had used up their natural resources and intended to do the same on Earth. John and several other youngsters were smuggled off their planet with their handlers during the invasion. A charm was placed on them where the beings could only kill them in a certain order. 1, 2, and 3 have been killed. John, who is number 4 is next. When number 3 is killed John and his handler who is posing as his father pulls up stakes and move to Paradise, Ohio, where John is a high school sophomore. His first day sucks. He meets a beautiful girl (the daughter of his father/handler’s real estate agent) who greets him warmly, only to have her ex-boyfriend, the football star who still loves her harass him for talking to her. He meets a boy who is full of alien conspiracy theories, and his legacies (powers that come to his people during adolescent) arrive. After a while things start settling. He’s making friends, he gets the girl, but then at a party he saves his girlfriend’s life and blows his cover and the aliens are coming, but so is Number Six.
I sucked talking about this book. Don’t take my stupid plot summary as a fact. I’m trying to think of something to say other than I loved this book.
What I didn’t Like:
The prologue was written in present tense and was a little off putting.
I didn’t get the most obvious thing, which I wonder if it will be addressed later in the series ala J.K. Rowling. Here is the most obvious thing that I didn’t get. They took over their planet and destroyed all their resources. Why do they care that these nine kids escaped? They are in hiding on Earth. They can’t band together without messing up the charm cast on them. Why are they being hunted? They already destroyed the planet. What do they care about these 9 kids? I totally didn’t get that. Am I stupid? Has anyone read this that they can explain it to me?
However, that was my only issue. Loved the hero, loved the plot, loved the girlfriend, loved the friend, loved Number Six, even loved the dog and I’m so not a dog person.
There you go. The most useless review ever, but go forth and read.
WHERE PURCHASED:
Borrowed from my local library.RATING:
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13 people posted their 2 cents:
I watched the movie ;) Olyphant is hot!
I wanted to watch the book before I saw the movie, but the trailer I saw looked good and I'm pretty sure it's out on DVD now or will be shortly.
Very good movie.. I havent read the book, but probably wont now that I have seen the movie
Shawna, I think you should read the book. I remember seeing Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief (the movie) and liking it. Then I read the book and now I can't watch the movie without getting annoyed because the book was so different from the movie, so much had been changed and the charecter nuances were so different.
Great review. I'm a sci-fi freak so I watched the movie and loved it (didn't really care for the heroine, though). I also have the book on my TBR and I'm hoping that I'll love it too.
Yvonne:
I know the heroine is played by that girl in Glee, I wonder if that is why you didn't like her. Although I haven't seen the movie, I can tell from the book that her charecter could easily turn into a carboard cut out.
OK, since you put it that way LOL! I may have to read the book now... will put it on my TBR list. This reminds me of Twilight. I see the trailer for the new one coming out. I saw the first one and didnt really like it like I thought I would, saw the second one, and felt the same. But I hear the books are sooo much better.. so those will be put on my TBR list as well.
This is funny because I just did a post on the movie last monday on my blog.
Shawna:
Take a look at this. I laughed so hard when I read this post. It talks about why the movie Twilight is better than the book. http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/11/slideshow_of_twilight.html
Wow... thanks for the review - not useless! I also have my head in the sand (kids) and have been seeing the ad for the movie OnDemand. I told my neighbor that the premise seems very cool and I'd like to watch (outside of kid friendly movies, I see 2 a year!)... Never knew it was a book. Thanks!
@twimom
Read the book first if you can.
Hi Lynette, It's been a couple weeks since you posted this review, so I'm not sure if you'll ever see my comment.
But to answer your question as to why the bad guys/aliens were trying to kill the 9 children, it was explained in the book (very briefly and somewhat vaguely) that the "Elders"(those with the most significant superpowers) of the planet that was destroyed were off planet on some mysterious mission when it was attacked.
Had the Elders been present, they could have destroyed the ravaging aliens/bad guys because the Elders are just *that* powerful that they can incinerate an entire invading army from another planet. Instead, the people left behind were those with just "average" superpowers, so they were wiped out by the superior weaponry and the armored beasts/creatures that the army also employed.
The nine kids that were saved at the last minute by being sent to Earth all have the potential to develop the same ultra superpowers as the Elders have (or had, if they are all dead from that mysterious mission they went on). That's why the bad aliens are trying to kill them off, because if the kids are allowed to mature to adulthood on Earth, they will have ability (even if only a handful survive) to apparently destroy the entire population of bad aliens. Given that these kids are probably angry that their first world was destroyed and are upset that their adopted world is now being targeted, that would one day (supposedly) make them the ultimate enemies of the bad aliens. So, got to knock them all off first...
I saw the movie and read the book and thought the book was much better. It went to more detail and was more emotionally charged than the movie, which cut out a lot of the background story and human relationship elements in favor of action, action, action!
The big thing that got to me was the loving for life. In the book, Henri says that Loriens can't have that type of relationship with a human, but in the movie he talks about how he could love her like that.
Still, the biggest thing though was the fact that John is fireproof, but that is not mentioned at all in the movie. Not only that, Six saves him from fire at the end of the movie!