I just got back from a trip to Long Beach, WA and before I went I picked up The Lake House at the library because I didn’t have anything else to read at the time. Well, Long Beach is about three hours from where I live in OR and I began reading in the car (which is not a good idea since I always get car sick this way). Well, three hours went by and I was on page 256 and the book was really exciting. I finished it later that day and was really blown away by how much serious nuts James Patterson really has. He brought back characters from a supposedly dead-end book (When The Wind Blows) and crafted a whole new story that really is much better than the original. While I’m sitting here and listening to Queen, I’m just thinking of the plot and I’m just overall really impressed by how James Patterson did a great sequel to one of his most beloved books. Although the ending is sort of a scam and some of the main characters are still annoying little bastards, if you look all past that you have a really good book that is definitely worth your time (any maybe even your money!).

The Lake House takes place within months after the end of When The Wind Blows with Kit Brennan and Frannie O’Neil fighting for the custody of the six amazing flying kids. Flying kids? Yes, if you have read the previous book, Frannie finds a little girl with wings darting through the woods so she stops and tries to help her out. Later in the book, she finds out that Maximum (the girl’s name AKA Max) and five other children had escaped from a science laboratory named The School and that experiments had been done on the children. This all led to a big conspiracy, but I won’t tell you anything else since you have to read When The Wind Blows to find out all of the juicy details. So, Frannie (an animal vet) and Kit (an FBI agent) are fighting for the custody of the children, but get shot down so the kids have to live with their biological parents (it’s a long story). This makes everyone sad and the press really loves these flying children. It seems the children are very unhappy and so they run away to Frannie’s house to be with her. This is when the fun starts. Because of all of the media attention the bad people who did experiments on the kids have resurfaced and a big event entitled Resurrection is about to happen, but it’s top secret. The only person who knows what it is is Max and if she talks, she dies. Led by Dr. Ethan Kane, a really bad guy doctor from a place called The Hospital, these bad people want to capture these kids and they’ll kill anyone who gets in the way. What will Kit and Frannie do to stop these murderous villains? Will the kids escape? What is Resurrection? Find out for yourself.

You’d think that this would be a forced sequel like books other authors have done (cough, Stephen King’s The Black House, cough), but it really actually isn’t. The Lake House branches off and spreads its wings if you will as a whole new book just with the same characters as the last one. And if you do decide to read this book without reading the previous novel, no worries because Chapter 2 fills you in (with solid detail) on what has happened thus far making it very helpful.

There are some really cool characters like Kit (AKA Thomas) Brennan and Frannie O’Neil. These guys love each other, but because of the custody battle and losing the children, they grew apart and really were depressed until the kids returned. These two characters have a love for each other that is very believable through Frannie’s spectacular narrative and you really get to know these two characters as if they were your best friends. In fact, while reading I got mental pictures of these two characters as if I could actually see them in front of my eyes.

But the flying children do nothing but annoy me. In When The Wind Blows I could barely tolerate these nuisances, but being a little more mature and older I gave them another chance, but I just can’t do it. They just are flat characters with nothing happening with them. Max and Ozymandias (or Oz for short) actually get interesting, though. In the previous book they were best friends and they still are in this one, but they actually get romantically involved. Something I forgot to tell you was that the kids were older in bird years than they were in human years so they can…you know…mate.

The other bird kids do nothing but ask for sympathy from the reader. Basically they are there for the few people who actually get upset when little kids are put in scary situations. Max and her brother Matthew have a believable friendship and actually make good brother and sister characters, but Oz and the other kids all by themselves are just plain boring. Basically what I’m trying to say is that when each of these kids is by themselves they just are boring and intolerable, but when together they create something that is vaguely likable.

So you may be asking, “What don’t you like about these sweet kids?” Their dialogue is vomit. I get knots in my stomach when they are talking to each other. (Stupid example) Max says to Kit, “I don’t give a fricking, fracking care if these people are after me.” Fricking, Fracking? What the hell is she saying?! Has Patterson ever been around children before? They don’t speak like this. Plus, when the kids are talking to each other they just are too goody goody and the way they speak to each other is just unrealistic. The dialogue sucks flat out between the kids. That’s what I’m trying to say.

Patterson’s writing just gets better each year and with last years, The Lake House he blends together a mix of passion, cruelty, surprise, and fear to create a story that is by far one of the coolest page turners he’s ever come up with. The extremely short 2-3 page chapters move the story along quite nicely with a brisk pace, but halfway through I just started feeling restless and bored. It was easy for me to put the book down (which is something that rarely happens when I read a Patterson novel), but then when it hits the final quarter of the book it starts to get really good again and I was glued. Patterson’s dialogue just hits you with an extreme force and you can actually almost hear the characters talking amongst themselves. That’s how good it is. Despite the kids’ lines. His detail of certain places is incredible and in the last book he sort of left me in the dark about some things, but he totally made it up to me with perfectly detailed lines of talk about the place that the book takes place in.

In essence, The Lake House like a dirty quarter. Despite its shininess, the dirt coating really drags it down from being perfect. With the annoying kids it really brings the book down a star as well as how sort of boring it gets in the third quarter of the book. If Patterson had spent a little more time developing the flying kids as well as maybe trying to keep a faster pace the whole way through the book, there’s really no reason why this could have not been one of his best books yet. With all of the surprises that you will read about through the book, it’s no wonder that people I know recommended this book to me. If you’re someone who loves a lot of plot twists and surprises, look no further than The Lake House since the one at the end nearly chopped my balls off. Although the ending wasn’t as I would have wanted it to be, Patterson must have had a reason for it, and he’s the author so I will say no more. If you have a couple days off work or if you have read When The Wind Blows and had no idea there was a sequel to it (like me), then take the time to go out to the library and check this out since it’s a good, quick read.

© Jason Haskins, 2004

“JiggyJay”



Warner Books Edition

Year 2003

376 Pages


Other Patterson Reads


When The Wind Blows

Cradle And All

The Beach House

Along Came A Spider





Recommended: Yes