In Pittacus Lore’s I Am Number Four, the main character John Smith has had many names, many faces, and never a true home for the past ten years. Who is he and why is he on Earth?
His only home was on his planet Lorien. That was until the alien race called the Mogadorians came and launched a war on John’s planet that they could never win. The Loriens saw the loss that was going to come and boarded a spaceship with nine special Lorien children, who were part of the Garde. Nine guardians, called Cepan also boarded with them. The Garde had incredible gifts called Legacies, which can be anything from flying to controlling the elements; they were super powers, basically. They were used to protect Lorien. The Cepan would be assigned to training them to fight and how to use their powers. The spaceship made it to Earth and the nine pairs went their separate ways.
A charm was put on the nine children so that they have to be killed in a specific order, unless they are together. A burning scar appears on the calf of every other one of the living children once one of the children is killed. Numbers One through Three have been killed, and John Smith is Number Four.
This was a very entertaining book. I would say it is mainly a science fiction with a lot of explosives, super powers, guns, swords, the things that make life fun. I would even guess to say there is a slight mystery theme, but not genre to it. There are a lot of questions to be answered and people to be found. There is a love story going on between John and a photographer named Sarah. There is an almost perfect balance of all the elements found in good stories in one. It is a little long; it has 440 Pages and 34 chapters, but it was a relatively quick read for me.
Unfortunately, like most books that have movies, the movie with I Am Number Four doesn’t correspond to the book. They took out way too many important details, and added parts that never happened. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great movie by itself, but it can’t compete for the book’s details. In the book all the events happened over months, but in the movie it seemed like it was in a week!
The one thing I didn’t like about the book is how it was structured. I know it has to be in first person form, but if it was written as a diary sometimes, or if there were some scenes about how Henri viewed choices John made, or the stress of John not developing his Legacies would have made the story much more interesting.
In the end, I Am Number Four is for a reader who likes a medium paced teen read about fighting, saving multiple worlds, and a love story that is a little gushy. I recommend the book.
Sorry, but I have to go meet with some John Smith about alien weapons or something.
My rating for this book is a 9 out of 10.
