There are reasons Patterson is such a phenomenally successful writer.  Among them is an ability to tap into our collective needs/angst as well as just managing pacing and hooks better than just about anyone else.

Anyway, he hooked me through the latest edition of his Maximum Ride books.  If you haven’t met Max yet, well, she’s a beautiful brilliant sassy fourteen-year-old girl who regularly takes out legions of plastic bad guys, deals with more complex and real issues with her “parents” and protects her family to the death.  Oh, and she’s got wings.  I bought the book the moment I saw it on the front table at B and N, and even though I have a solemn promise to a friend to read her mss (now started, and it’s good), I had to read this first.  After all, you can’t carry around a sheaf of papers on a bus, right?  Well, justification aside, I finished it in less than a day.  I just really like this series.  Mostly because I like Max.  I’m forty-seven and I want to be Max.  How many teenagers must want to be Max? 

Anyway, as part of an ongoing saga of waking up worrying about silly things in the middle of the night, it dawned on me that Max is the Superman of the decade.  The books are paced like comic books (they must be out in Manga – anybody know?  They’re perfect for it, anyway).  They’re written for ten to ninety year olds,which Patterson says right out loud. That’s  so the sweet spot I’m aiming for with the Fremont’s Children series.  And you gotta read to write, right?  There – another justification.  Sigh.

Anyway – I recommend these – whether you’re ten and ninety.   

Oh — and if you read the book, you’ll see why I tagged this global warming.