Book Review: I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies #1) by Pittacus Lore

Summary:

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.

Review: 

I have been a fan of the CW series Smallville for quite some time.  Reading I Am Number Four made me think back to the early seasons of Smallville, when Clark was trying to blend in at school and hide his powers.  I was remembering Smallville with longing because I didn't get anything equaling my Tom Welling eye candy in this book!

John is an alien from the planet Lorien.  Nine children were sent from Lorien to Earth, along with their guardians, when Lorien was under attack by the Mogadorians, a rival race from a neighboring planet.  The nine Lorien children all have special powers, called Legacies, which develop in their teen years.  There was a special charm placed on all nine Lorien children to help protect them.  The mainstay of the charm is that the Mogadorians cannot harm the children except in the order of their numbers.  When I Am Number Four starts, the first three Loriens have died and John knows that he is next. 

Much of the book is spent on John and his Lorien guardian Henri's attempts at assimilation into the human culture.  John and Henri move from town to town every few months in order to escape detection.  They live under constant threat of exposure to humans, but mostly the Mogadorians, who have ruthlessly hunted down the other Lorien escapees.  John and Henri move from Florida to Paradise, Ohio in the beginning of the book.  Something different happens in this town---John finds it impossible to fade into the woodwork at his new school.  He quickly makes an enemy out of the star of the football team, makes a new friend, and develops a crush on a popular girl.  Most of the book focuses on John developing these relationships while hiding his alien legacy.

I found I Am Number Four to be very slow.  The book is narrated in the first person point of view from John's perspective.  I liked John just fine, but the writing style did not appeal to me.  It felt too simplistic for my tastes.  John also felt one-dimensional to me.  The last 60-75 pages really saved the book, although the final battle scene felt repetitive.  I will continue reading this series, provided my library has the books for me to borrow.  I just wasn't enthralled enough to justify buying any more books in this series.

Just One Gripe:

My main gripe is how slow the book is.  I kept waiting for it to take off and it never did, until the very, very end and even that was a limited take-off.

The Best Thing About This Book:

The world-building.

Appropriate for a younger audience:

There is some violence but it's not too graphic.

Score:

Characters: 2/5

Plot: 2/5

Setting/Imagery: 3/5

Originality: 3/5

Ending: 2/5

Total Score:  12/25