When The Wind Blows by James Patterson – The Review… A little more technical than artistic??? What do you think?

I just finished reading When The Wind Blows by James Patterson. Now I have never picked up one of his books I’ve noticed them because they seem to stack shelves full of copies of his books and they’re also placed in multiple locations around the bookstore as if everyone is coming in for one of his books. And well I don’t doubt that they’re right. He’s popular. I never read his books knowing he was like every other ‘popular’ writer. Popular but not near the greatness the ‘common’ book buyer says that he is.  However, I had been writing a story about winged creatures (odd for me) and I decided to see how many people had similar ideas, so I dug through all shelves at the book store and James Patterson came up. I almost didn’t buy it due to his name on it, but I wanted to read as many books as I could with flying slightly human looking creatures.

I am one of those people who hate having my time wasted. That’s with books, music, television, movies, conversations…all of it. So as I began reading through the book which didn’t take me long to read it’s 300 something pages, as I found myself speed reading out of boredom and due to his writing style…if that’s what it can be called. People rave about this guy. So after reading and during my read I couldn’t understand why.  My compliment is that he has solid ideas, but he doesn’t have a solid way of executing the actual ideas onto paper. The story was predictable, and I found myself slightly disconnected from the characters. The character building did not please me what so ever, it was ineffective if it was even truly there at all.

The characters were also typical characters in addition to the story being predictable which made it all the worse. I found myself rolling my eyes as in the beginning when one of the male narrators (main character) went to do a little sniffing around in the area and of course just when he’s doing the sniffing around the leading female character is standing naked in the window in clean sight for him to see, and of course she’s beautiful and completely available for this mans eyes. It felt a little  more like some Brad Pitt hit for a moment…and then even more so as the story went on and they just had to strip down and do it out in the forest. I found myself raising my brow in confusion as I couldn’t find that ‘connection’ where the story comes full circle.

I will quote a great review  written by diogenes lamp “diogeneslamp” (Glenwood Springs, Colorado United States) on Amazon.ca. “The premise is tired. Genetic experimentations. A rogue agent that follows his conscience instead of the FBI bureau policy, who also happens to be really hunky. Crooked people in high places. A heroine, who happens to be beautiful and looks good through windows while naked, that hates then loves the good guy. A bad guy that cares nothing about anything but evil greed and power. Not one of these characters would be missed if they got shot or drowned, since they could easily be replaced by any number of other pop-fiction cliches.

The writing is poor. I say this honestly, not to be contrary. It is flat, staccato, and more technical than artistic.” You can read the full review here.(scroll to the bottom)

Now I must agree with this reviewer saying that the writing was more technical than artistc. He was right. The writing felt a little juvenile to my mind as well. I thought that the book was targeted for the wrong auidence. I wondered what he was thinking as he wrote for young teens or maybe even younger as Max in the story is eleven or twelve years old but then has such language and themes not suitable for those that you assume will read such a story. I wouldn’t recommend this book for your younger ones due to the language of sex and curse words. In addition to the language, well described sex scenes also pop up randomly where it took me off guard and felt that my time was wasted.  If Patterson had been as focused and as descriptive as he was for all of his sex scenes and put that throughout the book along with important scenes rather than what seemed a little useless or boring to reader the book may have had a chance.  His structure felt a little unintelligent. When I know the writer is obviously capable, but somehow tossed away the possible good product for a ‘bestseller’ how it became a bestseller…i’m still trying to figure out.  My hypothesis is that he did a rewrite and broke the two books up into smaller ones and added on to the story…in addition to that he made sure to target younger readers from 12+ so that the character grew with the audience.

The thing is…although I was able to get through the whole book a little curious to how it will end even though I already knew lol…I could see myself getting tired of the writer as I read. I knew that I have read better science fiction/thrillers. To sum it up I could see myself telling him exactly how to fix the book in a way to have it make a little more sense to the reader and to not waste the readers time.

Until Next Time…

Gene

What’s your opinion on this book or James Patterson?