I Am Number Four

John Smith is hiding from the Mogadorians in Paradise, Ohio anxiously waiting for his Legacies or super powers to develop. The Mogadorians, who destroyed John Smith's planet and people, are now on Earth tracking down and killing nine Loric youths in numerical order. One through three are dead. John is number four. Will they find him before he has the super powers needed to fight them?

A movie is being released based on this book and I think students will like the action and characters. The beginning of the book doesn't have strong dialogue. I found the conversations boring and too many sentences starting with "I". The writing felt monotonous until the end where it gets stronger and sentences start to vary and more senses are incorporated into the text.

The section with the bully at school is predictable and all of the characters swear a lot. John also gets a girlfriend and they kiss a lot.  On page 112 John says that his Grandfather is 50 years old which doesn't make sense because we learn earlier that people on Loric marry when they are 25. His parents would be 43 and Grandpa would have had a kid at the age of 7 when he had John's parents. Other lapses in plot are why would John go to the bully, Mark's, house for a party after the violent incident that happened between them. And why would Mark make a 180 degree turn and risk his life for John fighting the Mogadorians? Also, how can number six survive being stabbed by a 4 inch knife 3 times and shot in the leg? And what happened to the beast at the end that helped them?

If you can overlook the inconsistencies and get lost in the action, you should enjoy this book. The ending sets up the next book.

:-) :-) 2 Smileys