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I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

By Tara | Posted Under Book Reviews | Comments (22)

NUMBER-FOUR.jpg

I picked up this book after seeing the trailer for the upcoming movie. I love sci-fi movies and I always feel the need to read the book before I see the movie. I Am Number Four is about a fifteen-year-old boy, John, who came from the dying planet, Lorien when he was a toddler. His cepan (kind of like a guide/guardian), Henri, came with him and is his pretend father on Earth. Mogadorians from their rival planet are hunting down the nine Lorien teens and killing them. Oh, and they have a spell put on them so they can only be killed in order. John is Number Four (in case you weren’t aware from the title).

This was kind of a throwaway book for me. I just found out that “Pitticus Lore” is actually James Frey of the Million Little Pieces scandal. I read that book years ago, and this book is a TOTALLY different direction that one. However, this book fell a little flat. The characters weren’t BAD, but they weren’t exactly that memorable or interesting either. The story was interesting, but I kept finding myself wanting to skim through pages just to get to the end. I was very disappointed that they kind of left the end hanging for the second book to pick up with. I don’t really want to read a whole other book, but I kind of do want to know what Henri’s letter said.

Also, he’s fifteen freaking years old. They should have either made him a little older (17 or 18 maybe) or just killed the whole romance subplot. It’s hardly believable (and actually laughable unless you actually are fifteen) to have two fifteen year old totally in love from the second they meet at school, one of whom just got out of a serious, long-term relationship with the school jock. What, did they date all through Jr. High?? And the way she and his friend Sam took the news that he was alien; like he was telling them he was actually from Russia or something completely normal.

There were other things I found completely implausible. First of all, there was a huge final battle at the high school with the Mogadorians and a bunch of giant “beasts.” Did no one in this entire town notice any of this? There were no law enforcement, no ambulance, no news helicopters or reporters, no spectators, nothing. And don’t get me started on the whole WTF moment of Mark (the jerk ex-boyfriend) becoming an ally with no reason behind it whatsoever.

All in all, it wasn’t the best book ever, and wasn’t the worst either. I doubt I’ll pick up the second in the series unless my curiosity as to what Henri said in his letter gets the best of me. Which is entirely possible.


For more of Tara’s reviews, check out her blog, Tara’s 52 Book Challenge.









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Comments

So that's not Denis Leary in the header pic.

Nevermind then ... oh and the book sounds pretty daft!

Posted by: Murderbot at February 6, 2011 10:08 AM

Pittacus Lore isn't Frey, not really.

cf. James Frey’s Fiction Factory

Posted by: csb at February 6, 2011 10:36 AM

going by the article in the link, it is exactly as it seems, a cheap 'high concept' novel written expressly to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and to quickly get a fat movie option.

hard to argue with success.

Posted by: idleprimate at February 6, 2011 1:17 PM

Mmm, yeah, I hated this the first time I saw it on TMC-X and it was called, Jumper.

PS: Does all the cast HAVE to look like they just stepped out of a GAP commercial, jeeeeezz.

Posted by: BarbadoSlim at February 6, 2011 1:20 PM

The book by itself wasn't horrible the author seems halfway decent but the world it tried to create was horrible. Magic and aliens just don't mix.

And the entire plot was stupid. It's like the author thought of the line I am Number Four that then pulled something out of his ass to make sense of it. Who gives a shit if they have to be killed in order. Even if they can't kill them they can simply capture them

Also the powers are beyodn stupid. Seriously he has flashlight hands? Are you kidding me?

And last but least the enemies. The super duper bad guys that are oh so dangerous. ...seriously? Come on. They use knives to fight. Freaking knives. And their projectile weapons takes like what 5 minutes to charge up. There could be some excuse if they were bullet proof but no. A freaking what 14 year old kid shoots one dead without a single problem

Honestly the entire problem of the series could have been simply resolved if they bought themselves a private island with their mary suish money, choked it full of automated defences and mercenaries.

And the monsters? Don't get me started on the monsters

Posted by: YesPlease at February 6, 2011 2:13 PM

From what I've read lately, Frey is now doing what artists like Jeff Koons are doing; having young artists paint their pieces for them a la factory mode. I don't know if that applies to this novel or not.

It sounds like a novel that sets up it's own narrow set of rules in order to ensure a particular outcome. Writing to fit the ending you already thought of rather than letting the story lead there.

Posted by: Protoguy at February 6, 2011 4:25 PM

I had heard that the way the book is written you can tell it was intended to be made into a movie. Normally, this type of book would appeal to me but I have heard so many negative things about it, I'm not even going to give it a try.

Posted by: Az at February 6, 2011 7:35 PM

I was curious about this book when I saw the trailer - I'm also a sucker for science fiction. But this review convinced me not to waste my time. Mixing aliens and magic seems like an odd choice.

Posted by: MelBivDevoe at February 6, 2011 9:29 PM

lord, what a fucking pretentious nom de plume.

Posted by: firedmyass at February 6, 2011 10:46 PM

This is pretty much exactly how I felt about it too - not the best, not the worst, just there. However, I will probably see the movie solely because Timothy Olyphant is Henri (who was also the most likeable character in the book).

Posted by: Even Stevens at February 6, 2011 11:42 PM

Holy shit, what a terrible review!
(Is anyone screening these?)

Your conclusions are:
"...it wasn't the best... and wasn't the worst either."
and
"I doubt I’ll pick up the second in the series... [but maybe I will...]"

Are you fucking serious?
Tara, if you don't have an opinion on the book, why are you wasting our time with a "review"?

There's no summary other than a brief paragraph about the book's backstory.
You bitch about the love story, but forgot to mention there was one.
Did you proofread this? Example: Who had the relationship with the jock? Was it Henri?
Jesus, this is terrible.
You directly refer to some "letter" you're obsessed with twice(!), without the slightest regard for your readers who most likely haven't got a clue what you're talking about.
"And don’t get me started on the..."
Don't get you started? Have you got someplace else to be? Fucking tell us about it, you idiot.

Tara, this reads like an idiotic IM chat between you and a friend whom you know has also read the book. Reviews are for readers to decide whether to partake in the subject of your review - based on your opinions, description and summary of said subject. They are not self congratulatory pieces. As in: "Look what I read all by myself! I'm on a website"

God damn it.
Shame on you Dustin.
You're like JJ Abrams, creating Lost then checking out, sitting back, and collecting checks while terrible writers fuck up his engaging show.

Tara, think about the book before you start typing. Not, how did it make you feel? Think about what Pitticus Lore did to cause you to feel the way you do. What are the themes? What would you have done differently? How does this book relate/compare to his other works? "Different direction" sure, but how? Now you know that Pitticus Lore is James Frey, what implications does this have on your interpretation of the story? Step up, girl.

Try again. This was shit.

Posted by: Scott at February 8, 2011 12:09 AM

Dear Lord. That was...harsh. I'm part of CBR, which requires me to review every book I read regardless of whether I have a strong opinion on it or not. I definitely wasn't expecting to have this published here and probably wouldn't have picked this particular review if I did. But you didn't have to be QUITE so nasty about it. I did appreciate the constructive criticism towards the bottom.

Posted by: Tara at February 8, 2011 4:02 AM

Three years running and people still don't understand the point of CBR. They're not professional writers, Scott. They don't have editors. It's just people who like to read, who participate for fun, and do it for a good cause. You want to act all bitchy about writing, do it towards the actual Pajiba staff and the featured film/TV reviews, not someone who's just doing this for fun and because she likes the site and the cause. The reviews are picked at random, and the writers of CBR don't get a say in which one they pick.

All of that said, your criticism is useless, as criticism goes, because it's surrounded by such rampant and unrepentant dipshittery. You want to provide some sort of insight or help with someone's writing? Try doing it without being a colossal asshole.

Posted by: The Other Agent Johnson at February 8, 2011 8:37 AM

Johnson, this review got posted on Pajiba. So in essence, she did have an editor.
Pajiba's to blame for posting this, as much as Tara is for writing it. But it doesn't matter whose fault it was, Pajiba's, Tara's... Whether she got picked at "random"... (chortle)
Her writing (at least in this review) was crap, and certainly not up to par with Pajiba. Being a non-professional or merely writing for fun are not excuses for sucking.

You say i'm an asshole. Fine. i can live with that. But i'm not going to hold her hand. No criticism is useless, you twit. She read it, got her feelings hurt, and now will probably step up her game on her next review and push herself to write at a level closer to her full potential.

i'm positive Tara is capable of doing better than this garbage.
If she strives to write well in an effort to better herself, then fantastic!
If she does it merely to avoid harsh sniping from dipshits like me, that's great too. We all benefit from an increase of eloquent writers regardless of their motives.

And should Pajiba choose to be more discerning in sourcing its contributors, well then... that would be the greatest gift of all, wouldn't it?

Tara come on, girl. You're on the internets. People are watching.

Posted by: Scott at February 8, 2011 12:10 PM

Scott-

Actually, it's true, the Cannonballers have no control over which of their reviews show up on Pajiba. I pick them and post them. Even Dustin doesn't have a say in it. It's all me.

I picked that review for a few reasons. A) I liked that Tara was ambivalent about the book--I felt her review really captured the fact that it wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible either. Books fall on a whole continuum of wonderful to terrible, and I think the reviews that we (or in this case, I) post should reflect that. People aren't always going to have strong opinions one way or the other about a book they've read. B) The review is timely with the movie coming out, and given that Pajiba is, ostensibly, a movie review website, I figured it would get a bunch of hits--which it did. If a CBR review gets 5 comments at this point, I'm happy. This one got over twice that, so my instincts weren't wrong (this time). C) I liked the more conversational style of the review. It felt especially appropriate given the type of book being reviewed. Also, this post went up on a Sunday, and the weekends are a time for relaxing, so this review, being a bit more laid back in its approach, felt appropriate for that reason as well.

As The Other Agent Johnson pointed out, the Cannonballers are doing this out of a shared love of reading and to honor AlabamaPink. None of them signed on to be professional book reviewers; they just agreed to throw up reviews so the number of books they've read can be counted. They are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, and I salute them for it.

So, in the future, when you are deeply offended by a review, feel free to direct that displeasure at me, but I respectfully request that you not attack the reviewer, or Dustin for that matter.

Posted by: tamatha at February 8, 2011 1:00 PM

Anything to encourage people to read and share their thoughts is great. But in a community founded with such wonderful prose, you have a responsibility to promote a higher level of writing as well.

Dustin is a big boy, and can certainly fend for himself... but point taken, Tamatha. i'll prod you in the future to be more vigilant. As for avoiding the reviewer... If they write poorly, shouldn't they know? Why shield them?

In The Other Agent Johnson's rush to Tara's defense, they forgot to actually disagree with any of my points. Johnson just had issue with the way my critique was presented.
Yes, excuses were made for her:

Scott doesn't understand CBR
Tara is not a professional
She doesn't have an editor
She did it for fun
She did it for a good cause
The reviews are picked at 'random'
The sun was in her eyes*

These aren't disagreements. They are excuses for pathetic writing.
Johnson totally fails to argue that Tara's review is anything but terrible.
And frankly Tamatha, you did the same thing.
Come on, it was a weekend, dude!

i appreciate that you liked her style, and felt it was timely.
i laughed once during Outsourced. Congrats. We're both going to burn in hell for enjoying something awful. But a disingenuous gesture of protecting Tara from rabid internet commenters will not help her be a better writer. That's an empty proclamation, and it insults her. Why aren't you pushing her? Do you think this is the best she can do?

In my post i called Tara an idiot. i admit that was a mistake.
Tara, i am truly sorry. i do not think you are an idiot.
In fact i believe you're better than what has been posted here. i want you to be better.

And i want Tamatha to not post crap.
And i want Dustin to not choose people to can't discern crap.

*May or may not have been what Johnson was actually thinking.

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