Rating: 
Summary: Tim H.------Must Read This book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: The Lake House by james patterson is a science fiction novel filled with mystery and suspense. the book starts out in a usual way, a scene where one of the main characters is leading their normal everyday life. Then before you know it you are smack dab in the middle of the plot and you just can't put it down. in this book's case, the character portrayed in the first scene is Frannie. She is a middle-aged woman that takes care of animals, she is a veterinarian. In the first scene she is walking into a court house with her friend Kit who is a FBI agent. they are trying to win custody of the bird children that they love so much and who love them back. After the court case this book takes off on a whirlwind adventure. When two of the children are attacked in their home they immediately fly to round up all the other kids and go on the run from teh mad scientists with Frannie and Kit again. It you read the book When the Wind blows (the prequal to this book) you would have learned that this couple met the six extraordinary bird children when Frannie helped the eldest, Maximum, when she shot out of the sky. THe children were test subjects at an ilegal facility called the SCHOOL. Their genes had been spliced so that they had super strength and intelligence. They also had some senses an dphysical features of birds, they even had wings that made them fly!! Frannie and Kit helped the children escape and they became one happy family until the media came around and the biological parents wanted their children back. I enjoyed reading this book very much. I had a lot of trouble putting it down; in fact, the only way i stopped reading was if I fell asleep in it. Even though the book seemed predictable there were spots that cought me off guard and scared me at what was happening. My favorite thing about this book though, it that at the end it leaves you hanging, setting up for a third book in this series. (Ooh I'm so excited!!!!!)
Rating: 
Summary: Zero Stars
Review: Worst book I have ever read. There is no reality in this book. Bird children with wings who escaped from a horrible hospital that did experiments on them and a psycho 'doctor' chasing after them with armed assasins. Come on... I do like fantasy books at times, but this was impossible to take. There was nothing that I could remotely identify with and I never did connect with any of the characters. I can't believe I actually read the whole thing. I refused to stop reading a book that I had paid for. I had heard of James Patterson before reading this sorry book, and had even seen some movies based on his work. I really expected more from him. But by the end of the story, I hoped that the psycho doctor would catch up to them and kill them all. It was just that bad!
Rating: 
Summary: Mixed emotions on this
Review: First the positive... The book is incredibly fast paced. I like the plot and that's what held me and kept me reading. The dialogue lacks reality in any of the characters. The characters lack dimension. I don't find them believable. Max sounds like a grown man one time and a twenty-something person the next...but I can't define her gender as that of a young girl of 12 on up. There are no expository thoughts by her to speak of which draw the reader in. This appears to have been a hasty effort on the part of the author. The narration is lengthy and the scenery not engaging. There was no depth or reality to the court scenes. They appeared to have been almost an afterthought. Certainly, there was no research done on court rooms for this effort. Dr. Kane is too one-dimensional. Even bad guys have a tender side once in awhile. The split up of Kit and Frannie at first was surreal and almost an afterthought as well. It didn't make sense. I agree that the author tossed in too much pop culture and it was boring. First of all, a twelve year old on up doesn't realistically listen to or do the things or even think the things that Max does...or the other children for that matter, even if they are "gifted. I wanted to feel the characters and I didn't. I wanted to join the dialogue and I didn't. I wanted some depth in the scenes and they weren't there. They were mostly hastily written passages that left me disappointed. I wanted emotion, it was not there. I felt nothing but inclined to go to the end and get it over with, already. The two things that kept me reading were the plot and the fact I paid for the book, so I was determined. I will not read anything more by this author though...at least if I pay for it. Maybe through a library. Overall, I was both disappointed and interested. I feel a writer, who has published numerous works should have made a better effort at character development. There were scenes that engaged me, but I confess that I skipped over a great deal of boorish narration, just to find out what happened. I didn't like that as a reader.
Rating:
Summary: Rebel without a cause . . .with wings!
Review: The only decent thing about this book is that I got it from my library. Had I actually purchased this book, I would be livid. All we want as readers is to read a book in which the author "tried." If I read Ollie North's book or Kyle Mills' book and I don't like the content, really I have only myself to blame. They're trying. I know what I'm getting into. If I read Follett or Koontz or Patterson, when time after time in recent years they have shown me they just mail it in, I'm the fool. Bird children. OK. I grew up in the '60's. I saw Mothra and Godzilla. So I'll take a crack at bird-kids. Bird kids that have sex? No that's too much. Bird kids that kill? No, I'll pass. Jumping from one ambush to another? How do they do it? So much wasted dialogue and so few (if any explanations). How do the hunters know where the prey are? How do they find them? They're genius birds, after all. The adults speak like children ("Hugs and Kisses. Hugs and kisses. Coo Coo Coo.") And the children speak like no child I ever heard. The plot is unbelievable. The interconnecting scenes without bridges. The conversations without any basis in reality, suspended or actual. The facts are MIA. In the second to the last scene the characters we have come to love (or rather just put up with) are facing certain death. In the next scene, they are free! This is not David Copperfield. How did he do that? Huge enormous collossal waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: Original and entertaining...A fantastic novel.
Review: The flying children are back in a non-stop thriller. Max, and her group of winged pals have escaped the horrors of government experimentation at a place called "the school." Now, living among the civilized world for the first time, Max and crew long to be reunited with Kit Brennan and Frannie O'Neill, the couple that rescued them, and at long last return to the lake house, the cabin of safety for the winged children. Unfortunately things will not go smoothly and the children will battle for their lives. As a legal battle ensues over the custody of the children, Max realizes her worst nightmare is about to become reality as a survivor from the destroyed "school" has re-surfaced with a sinister plot. Max, Matthew, Icarus, Oz, Peter, and Wendy, with the help of Kit and Frannie must fight for their lives while staying one step ahead of a monster set out to destroy the future of human existence. 'The Lake House' is the thrilling sequel to 'When The Wind Blows.' From the prologue to the last page you are held captive by science, action, interesting characters and surprising plot twists in this fantastic thriller that stretches the imagination. Only at the hands of James Patterson can a story of winged children be an entertaining page-turner. Trademark short chapters, and shocks at every turn keep things cooking as you race to the satisfying climax. Once again, James Patterson scores a bulls-eye with a novel that's sure to please his fans, and land at the number one spot on all the bestseller lists. Nick Gonnella
Rating: 
Summary: I liked it until the end.....
Review: Like many of the authors that put out several books a year, this one starts out good, gets better and then lays an egg. The end came up quickly and disappointed. I was ready to give this 4 stars, but cannot. The good side, is that you can read this book in a few hours. Why develop a story and then just have it end? Why not write a longer, more involved book that keeps getting better?
Rating:
Summary: I want a refund
Review: I can't believe I wasted money on this tripe. I was recovering from surgery and desperate for reading material, so I picked this book from the best seller list. What a disaster...horrible writing, non-existent plotting, inane dialogue, unreal characters. I laughed all the way through it though the author didn't intend it to be funny. The characters seemed to magically get out of situations with no explanation...for example, Max, the bird girl, is shot, and two scenes later she turns up fine, completely healed from her wounds after somehow (again not explained) crawling into an air duct in front of the bad guys' eyes. What!?!?! I kept checking the level of my pain pills, thinking I'd somehow overdosed. I only kept on reading because I was fascinated by its badness...like a train wreck I couldn't keep my eyes off it. I've never read this author and never will again. If I had to chose between re-reading it and more abdominal surgery, I'd have to think about it.
Rating:
Summary: possibly the worst book I've ever read...
Review: Words can't begin to express the hatred I have for this book. From the large print, double spaced 2 page chapters that stretch this to 376 pages to the 970 gazillion exclamation marks (!!) to the stupid one word sentences. (oh. my. god. this. book. sucks.) I have liked Patterson before but will definitely read a review of his next book before I pick it up (obviously I didn't do that this time). If there were a way to give a book a negative star rating, I would have.
Rating:
Summary: Really bad.
Review: This was the first James Patterson book I have ever read and it was terrible. The writing was simplistic and seemed almost to be written as a teen mystery. The story just dropped off and picked up willy nilly. The characters got out of difficult situations just by getting out of them ... that's it. It just happens. Really, really bad.
Rating:
Summary: Worst he's written!
Review: I love James Patterson's books and usually devour each one as soon as it's published but The Lake House is a terrible disappointment. Don't waste your money!
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