Rant about Stupid Books being Stupid

I am, without a doubt, a book snob.

You probably remember me saying this when I said that I don't like reading friends' novels, because if it's bad I have no choice but to tell them and people don't like to hear that their babies are ugly.

Now. My book snobbishness goes to, you know, actual books as well.

Recently, a friend of mine read the last book in the Maximum Ride series. Normally, I would have as well, except I stopped reading the series two books previous. You see, the series went from a very interesting story about genetically modified kids with wings to a horribly written, stupid story about global warming or whatever.

The first three books in the series were great. Max, the narrator, was snarky, independent, and rough around the edges. She avoided showing weakness, no matter what.

Then came the fourth book. Things started devolving then, although it's still better than the last three books. The writing fell off a bit, and the stupid global warming plot came into play. Max and Fang (whom I'm sure you remember from the obsessions post) started being all together and stuffs.

By the fifth book, Max was whiny, annoying, and all around stupid. She had lost that defiant spark. All the characters were acting less and less like themselves - Fang was talking! to people! - and not in the "oh they're developing" way. It was in the "I think Patterson might have hired a ghostwriter from a fanfiction website" sort of way.

The sixth book is when I just set the series down and refused to read any more. Fang was even less himself, Max made me what to stab things, and this stupid Dylan character just made everything even more muddled. At the end of the book, Fang wrote a note saying that he would leave the flock.

Now, Fang from the first three books would have a note that said this: "I'm gone." That's it. Two words. THIS note was like five billion pages (y'all know how I love hyperbole) and full of feelings and whatnot. Fang doesn't talk about feelings. Fang ignores his feelings until he can't any more, does something stupid or reckless because of them, and then goes back to ignoring them.

So yeah, after that, I declared that I would not read another Maximum Ride novel. I just can't stand watching what used to be good characters devolve into idiotic shadows of themselves.

Sorry for the rant. I just. Ugh. Whenever I think about it, it just makes me angry all over again, because COME ON! I loved Fang! He's in FWECKH! (Which stands for Fang Will Edward Cadvan Kartik Heathcliff/Hareton.) And Patterson took him from awesome to stupid in the span of two books. How is that even possible?