Let me tell you something about James Patterson.

That man is a fag in every sense of the word.

If you guys can think of a worse writer that isn't Stephanie Meyer, I promise you, I will cut off my hand and post it here as a trophy.

I speak most specifically of the Lake House and the Maximum Ride series, which are virtual copies with the exception that Lake House has veritable kiddy porn in it, and Maximum Ride has boobs. The two compare in that titular Max of the latter series is the same in Lake House; wings and all. She falls in love with some douche named Ozymandias and ends up laying eggs at the age of twelve. Of course, Patterson covers up hers and Ozzy's delicious mating scenes by saying that at the age of twelve, they're already as mature as 3o year-old humans; you know, the kind without wings. In the Ride series, she has a whiny, angst-filled love interest with black hair and ebony wings whose primary objective is to publish a book of deep poetry. His name is Fang. Srsly.

In the last book, he and Max go to Vegas and win the lottery, but then he ditches her because he can't be with her while she leads the flock (their feathery freak show friends) because it's like, distracting or something.

Anyway. The first two books in Maximum Ride were really cool, if you were ten- the 2% bird DNA freak job kids that were running from the scientists that wanted to tear them apart, the Erasers- sexy model men that turned into wolves, and the ideal that somewhere out there, the inner you was living off the grid and fighting for survival on the edge of a waterfall or something badass.

However, as the series progressed, it became gradually worse- the youngest of 'the flock', Angel, developing super powers faster than Peter Petrelli can stop time, the introduction of a dog that can talk OMG and jump really high in the air, and the government asking super nice if the freaks would like to come and save the melting polar ice caps and some fishies in Hawai'i.

No joke.

By the way, Max runs into a really sweet veterinarian totally by accident because she was saving the lady's daughter, and then OMG it turns out the lady is really her mom!

Not to mention the blind winged kid (who is also in Lake House) who lost his vision in exactly the same way and also happens to be really good at making bombs and cooking.

Wonder how many times the dude's put salt in place of sugar.

Overall, the series' potential degraded rather quickly as Patterson used the stories as an excuse to foist his liberal propaganda into the literary world. This proved unsuccessful for anybody paying attention, however, as Stephen King has been quoted as calling Patterson a 'terrible writer' outright.

I love Stephen King.

I never read his books- with the exception of Through The Eyes of the Dragon-, because I'm a wussy, but the dude is a genius and probably one of the smartest, funniest writers out there.