Review: I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

Review: I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

My Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Summary (from Goodreads):
Nine of us came here. We look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We can 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 where 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.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

I really liked this book.  I've seen quite a few negative reviews on it, but I happened to like I Am Number Four a lot.  It's not at the top of my favorites list, but still, I thought it was pretty well executed! 

This was one of those few occasions where I saw the movie before I read the book.  I'll be honest, I actually liked the movie a little bit more than I liked the book.  But I still thoroughly enjoyed the book.  There were just a few slower parts (which they left out in the movie) that had a lot of world-building for Lorien (John/ Number Four's home planet) that were probably necessary, but still extremely slow.   They could have at least been shortened or given some plot.  But it felt like they were just random scenes describing Lorien and didn't have much to do with the story.

And seriously, who names their main character John Smith?! That was about the creative limit for this book.  Major Character names: John. Sarah. Mark. Sam.  Come on. 

And I know that in the movie, John is like this really intense, hard-core dude, but in the book, John was freaking EMOTIONAL.  I would have sworn that a girl wrote this book, not two guys.  I'm a girl, and there were times when I was just like, "Dude.  Suck it up." I mean, seriously.  

But, once we jump to the last 175 pages or so, it got pretty interesting.  When the action started kicking in, I had a tendency to be glued to this book.  It was slow coming, but eventually, the story got really good and I felt like I was actually reading something intense.  I think that until the last 175 pages it was all too easy.  They had avoided the Mogadorians (those are the bad guys, for those of you who haven't read the book or seen the movie) for way too long.  But, when the final "showdown" finally occurred, it was really interesting, and not something I've really seen before.  So, the book was good, but it just took a while to get there.