I Am Number Four

Who's next?

Throw away the eye-make up remover, my tears practically did all the work for me. Seconds after I finished reading Pittacus Lore's (pseudonym created by Jobie Hughes & James Frey) I Am Number Four, I looked into the mirror at my tear-stricken face and realized my black eyeliner has smudged all around my eyes, and all I had to do was swipe a cotton bud at them and voila, clean! (this ain't good for your face, but that's all I can do right now). So how did I like this YA sci-fi? It wasn't at all bad, I tell you that.

You see, it is a heart. But not a coloured full heart. In scores, this translates as 3 stars out of 5. Which means I just liked it instead of really, really liking it. Why? While no doubt the story really got me in the end, it had started really slow. I liked the first two chapters a lot, but after that, it was kind of tedious. I liked Number 4 a.k.a John Smith quite a bit; he was very believable as a teenage boy, alien though he is. And I also liked Henri (his guardian, or in the book's term, his Cepan), and I liked his bestfriend, Sam Goode. I really did not like John's love interest, Sarah Hart (she was so plain, so typical, so underwhelming), and I hope with a passion that Dianna Agron makes her likeable in the movie (to be released on February, 2011). Their love story has a bittersweet ending (throughout it was just a corny-fest), the kind of endings that I totally love, but this time around, it did nothing for me. And for me, the love stories in books are the things that determine whether a book is good or not, admist all the other themes in it. Sadly, this one part of the book didn't work for me.

For me, emotion was lacking throughout the story. However, when it was there right almost at the end, it really set my tears running. Good as it was though, it doesn't quite make up for the absence of it throughout most part of the book. Yes, there were lots of violence (I thought it would never end!) which makes me conclude that this book is geared more towards boys than it is for girls. Maybe because the writers are both males, they weren't able to really write a girl character very well (not being sexist here, but I really think that that played a role), and thus the epic fail character of Sarah Hart. I thought the climax of the book, while absorbing, wasn't written very well either. I got confused a lot reading it. BUT, I do think that the ending was good. And the ending saved the whole thing for me. Because of it, I will continue the series and am looking forward to reading The Power of Six to be released in Spring 2011. Oh my, another 5 year long wait before the series end (there'll be 6 books). I'll be so old by then, will I still be interested in YA? Hmm, I think I will be. lol.

The upside of this book is that the authors are not like Cassandra Clare when it comes to their characters. Read it and you'll know what I mean.

Here's my favourite sentence of the book;

"Bright, kind eyes full of life look into mine as though offering a promise, a bond, yet I'm too young to know what that promise or bond really means."

In context, it will break your heart.