Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports (Maximum Ride Series #3) » (Abridged)

Not making any bones about his bid for success, James Patterson once declared he wanted to be known as the king of the page-turners. While that may seem like a pretty grand ambition, Patterson is as worthy of that title as any author working today.

There's one last chance to save the world in MAXIMUM RIDE: SAVING THE WORLD AND OTHER EXTREME SPORTS, the closing chapter of James Patterson's thrilling trilogy. The time has arrived for Max and her winged 'Flock' to face their ultimate enemy and discover their original purpose: to defeat the takeover of 'Re-evolution', a sinister experiment to re-engineer a select population into a scientifically superior master race...and to terminate the rest.

Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and Angel have always worked together to defeat the forces working against them—but can they save the world when they are torn apart, living in hiding and captivity, halfway across the globe from one another?

VOYA

The winged mutants return for a third installment in the Maximum Ride series. The group of six human-avian hybrids, along with their talking dog, are still on the run from the evil scientists of the Itex Corporation, who created them and who now want to destroy them. When Max and her crew discover that Itex has a plan to obliterate half the world's population as well as all of the early-model mutants, they are compelled to interfere. By now, they have a small network of friends whom they can trust, and Fang makes good use of his blog to recruit the children of the world to help them with their mission. Romantic tension leads Max and Fang to take separate paths-Max with the girls, who travel Europe in search of Itex headquarters, and Fang with the boys in the United States. Some surprises occur along the way when the identity of Max's parents is revealed and when her former archenemy joins the fight against Itex. This novel has more depth than the previous two books in the series. Questions of environmental damage, ethics in science, gender issues, and what it means to be human are at the center of the story. Max is very outspoken about violence and its causes, and she fights regretfully when it is necessary. The chapters are short, taut, and filled with action, keeping readers engaged. Although the conclusion feels more final than in the previous books, Patterson leaves it open for another installment.