Review of I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

From the book:

Nine of us came here, we look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having.We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books--but we are real.

Our plan was to grow, and train, and become strong, and become one, and fight them. But they found us and started hunting us first. Now all of us are running, Spending our lives in shadows, in places no one would look, blending in. We have lived among you without you knowing.

But they know.

They caught Number One in Malaysia.

Number Two in England.

And Number Three in Kenya.

They killed them all.

I am Number Four.

I am next.

My Thoughts:

The idea behind this story is brilliant. Nine children from a distant life-bearing planet come to Earth along with their Guardians (cepans). They can run as fast as a car on the highway and they're super strong, but they aren't the only ones that came to Earth. Another bunch of aliens, the Mogadorians, are here to destroy them and then do the same to us.

I loved the history that is given in this story. Its so well thought out. There aren't many details about the race of the Lorien that are left to the imagination, or their involvement in our world.

On the other hand, the language used in the story is awkward, there are many times where you have to read over a sentence or paragraph more than once. Also, the whole story is written in present tense which is a bit odd. The grammar and punctuation are attrocious. There are a lot of places where the comma is a space away from the word it should be attached to. Same with periods. There were also a lot of words with no spaces between them making it hard to read at times. It was really very disappointing that such an amazing idea wasn't looked over more carefully by the editor. Especially considering it was published by Penguin.

Overall, the action sequences were pretty decent, maybe a little drawn out. The characters weren't deep, they were very two-demensional, and it will probably lose a lot of readers due to the lack of self and professional editing.

Rating: YA.

Recommended for: Readers of almost any age. Most of the vocab in it is very simple.

Not Recommended for: Anyone that will get stuck on the technical issues of writing.

Stars: 2/5