Daniel X Book 1 Review: Chapters 8-13

Heyhey! Welcome back...mom. Anyway, let's get right to chapter 8 in the book!

So, the chapter begins with Daniel leaving Portland to find Number 6, and...yeah, this chapter doesn't really have much to do with the main story. Basically he rides the bus for a while and then hitchhikes (which he does not recommend, but as we have clearly established in the previous chapters, he's basically a creator, and doesn't need protection. That and he needs to cover his tracks.). He mentions that he got a ride from a group of nuns...and then the chapter ends. Woopee.

So, chapter nine onward is a bit more exciting.

I didn't mind so much that the pickup truck I stuck out my thumb at didn't stop. It was the can of Busch beer that sailed out of his passenger window that I found quite unnecessary. It probably would have shattered the bone structure of my face if I didn't have pretty good reflexes. I ducked at the last second and watched as the full can exploded with a foamy hiss against the trunk of a pine tree.
I decided I needed to teach that idiot truck driver a lesson about highway safety and etiquette.
 

Like not picking up hitchhikers? Anyway, Daniel puts the beer back into the can using his mind, seals it, reaches the driver in 10 seconds, quips at him, and tosses the can back into the seat. And then he realizes that the driver has two noses and a few dozen fangs. Daniel responds by poking the brute in the eyes. The alien warns Daniel that if he continues chasing Number 6, he will die horribly. A second later, the alien turns back into the man, who confusedly begs for mercy. Daniel lets him go, and wonders about the power of Number 6, Ergent Seth.
So, what was it about urgently needing to cover your tracks?

SO, Daniel camps out in the forest for the night, and, get this, he has FRIENDS. No, I take that back, he MAKES friends!!! Argh! Why don't you just make a new race while you're at it?! So, his "friends" are Willy, Joe-Joe, Emma, and Dana (which is apparently a girls' name). Willy is Daniel's age (of course) is "fearless, loyal to a fault, and all heart." Joe-Joe is the eater, but skinny, and is "messy, and athlete at nothing but competitive eating, and the most sarcastic, funniest motormouth I know." Emma's...a tree-hugger. I'll just say it. She's a total tree-hugger. Dana's the obvious love interest (Daniel describes her as "probably the most beautiful girl I've every met", which is sort of creepy since he made her), and, of course, is nice as heck. Oh, and he has a crush on her. Well, don't worry Daniel, I'm sure that having a crush on someone you CREATED is not going to be a problem.

So yeah, as you can see, Daniel's created friends are basically made out of movie cliches, which may or may not be interesting. On one hand, it may seem that Daniel uses what he sees from movies and books to make his friends. On the other hand, maybe the author is just using cliches. I don't know. Anyway, the five teens play Trivial Pursuit for a while, and we get...three pages of interaction. And chapter 13 ends with Dana kissing Daniel on the cheek. ...Awkward.

Ok, no closing statements. It's 7:37 pm, and I haven't finished dinner. Minecraft is calling me. Bye.

Daniel X Book 1 Review: Chapters 1-7

Welcome back to my Daniel X book 1 review! This time we're going to look over chapters 1 through 7. Let's get right to the review! ...Nah. Ok, so I didn't notice this before, but apparently in the cover of the book, along with info about Patterson, there is this following message: In the spirit of the most enduring hit movies and books, James Patterson has written this story for  readers from ten to a hundred and ten. Special care has been taken with the language and content of The Dangerous Days of Daniel X. ...Ok, I can't really fault Patterson for this, even though it is kind of awkward. From what I've seen, his books aren't really what some people might consider "kid friendly", so I guess I can excuse it. Now, let's get to the review.

So, twelve years have past since the death of Daniel's parents, and he's fifteen now. Yeah...15...very original. And we get another few sentences of tease when we hear about all these awesome-sounding aliens that we would love to read about, but won't. Oh, and guess what? Remember when you thought that the prologue was the only part that was going to have 3 page chapters? Guess again! The entire freaking book is made out of these things. The book is 238 pages long and 92 chapters long. There's really no apparent reason for this, but I can only imagine that the author was afraid kids might get bored, so he changed the chapter every minute. Anyway, we do get a short scene of Daniel shredding Alien Number 19 into pieces....
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Anyway, according to Daniel, the process was "Terrible and gruesome and took hours to accomplish, and I hated every second of it, every shred." And it looks like his dialogue sounds like something you would see from a Spider-Man comic, with sarcastic talk and patronizing quips, while thinking of a way to beat a sewer monster, which I suppose is alright. And another two pages later, Daniel is at home in Portland, when he gets a visit by some gruff cops, who ask him if his parents are home. Daniel of course says that they're busy, and the cops of course get ready to haul him to the station. So Daniel's mom comes out and-
Wait.
WHAT?!
And it gets even weirder. Daniel's DAD, Harold Hopper (yeash) exchanges retorts with the cops, who tell him that Daniel has to go to high school under Portland law.

"High school, sure. Well, that would be a real wast of time," my dad said and began to laugh. I laughed along with him as he put his arm around my shoulder.

 

 Daniel's mom explains that Daniel doesn't NEED to go to school, since he had went to high school when he was ten, has a near 200 IQ, and is a MIT grad with a degree in molecular engineering. I'm not sure if this actually true, since it was established that Daniel had a teenage vocabulary at 3 years of age, or if Daniel was just showing off. And we'll get to that part soon. The cops ask to see this "diploma", and Daniel's dad replies, "You'll see his diploma when we see a warrant."

"It'll actually be fun hauling you, your wife, and your 'genius' son in when we come back with that warrant," the cop snarled."
 

 "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a speech to give at the prison guard academy." (Okay, he didn't say that.)

The cops leave, and Daniel tells his parents that he's going after Number 6, the missing Kid Next Door...Okay, his name is Ergent Seth, but I couldn't resist. His mother is concerned that Number 6, who's in California, might be too much for him. Of course, all we're thinking is "WHO THE FRIK ARE YOU?!"

Then I closed my eyes. I took a breath and let it out slowly, and when I opened my eyes again, my mom and dad were gone.
They were gone because I was the one who created them in the first place. I fashioned them into existence out of my memory--just to run interference with the cops. Like I said, a charade. And a pretty good one too.
Now you know a little bit more about me.
Freaky, huh?
 

 Uh, no. The word I'm looking for is...insane, I believe. I mean, how the heck can you do this?! Why are they talking like your real parents would?! Are they ghosts?! Did you raise the dead?! How did you get this insane power?!

Luckily, chapter 7 (three pages long) is mostly about Daniel's powers. You see, Daniel's "parents" that we just saw weren't really his real parents, but "probably" just mental projections that he made real. Oh, and I don't mean like illusions or anything, I'm talking friggin' DNA. Like actual people.
...
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WHAT?!!!! It seems that Patterson decided to make a 15-year old boy GOD! And he doesn't just remake his dead parents, but we'll get to that in a later segment!

So how does he...create life? Well...he doesn't really know. He basically says that everything, even energy, is made out of the same basic materials, which he can rearrange at will. ...Ok, weak, but if had to explain how a teenager can be like a deity, I wouldn't go too deep either. He does explain that there are limits to his powers.

There's only so much I can create, for a limited period. I have to be really calm, and concentrate like you won't believe. Plus there seems to be a mass limit. Or sometimes I seem to run up against a mental block of some kind. One time I tried to create a really cool, flaming red Ferrari, but nothing happened.
Some things are easy to create. My mom and dad, for one. I do them a lot. When I'm afraid or lonely. They're like a recipe you've done over and over again until you can do it in your sleep.
 

 SO, HUMAN LIFE is no problem, but if you try to do a FERRARI, that's too much!

Alright, let's get this over with. He's fast enough to catch a sparrow out of the air, strong enough to "flip a car in a pinch", can "influence" people ("Sort of like an instant hypnosis type of thing"), and can sometimes tell events before they occur. We get some stuff about aliens having been on our planet for millions of years, and we end the chapter with Daniel saying that he thinks he's an alien too.
Oh, really? No crap.

So that's chapters 1-7.
...What can you say? No really? What can you say?
...Screw it, you think up your own opinions. See you next time.

Random Jokes

Two guys are out hunting. Suddenly, one of them gasps, turns blue, and falls to the ground. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls 911 and says, "My friend is dead! What do I do?!" The guy on the phone says, "OK, hold on. First, make sure that he is dead." Silence, and then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the hunter says, "OK, now what?"

A pastor was on his deathbed, and called to his wife. He asked her to call two people in his church, a lawyer and a doctor, to be next to him as he died. The two men came, and each held one of the pastor's hands. The two men were flattered, though they were a bit confused, since they weren't very close to the pastor. After a few minutes, the lawyer finally asked, "Pastor, why did you call us here?" The dying pastor gathered up his strength. "Jesus died between two thieves," he said, "and that's the way I want to go."

Three men had lived in isolation on an island for years. One day, they find a bottle. After opening it, a genie comes out and says, "I will grant you all one wish." The first man says, "I wish to be with my family." POOF He's finally with his family after all these years. The second man says, "I want to be with my dear friends." POOF He's reunited with his closest friends. The third man thinks. And thinks. And thinks. Finally the genie cries out, "Just pick a wish already!" The man finally replies, "I wish for those two men to come back to me."

First Post/The Dangerous Days of Daniel X Review: Prologue

Hello, my blockheads! :D Haha! Well, this is my first blog post, and you can expect more blogs to pop up soon! This is my personal blog, where you can see my true opinions on books or movies, my favorites quotes, or other misc. things like that. Anyway, following is my review of the first seven The Dangerous Days of Daniel X review (Daniel X book 1). Hope you enjoy!

So, the first thing you may notice about the book is that it is by James Patterson, a fiction mystery/suspense writer. You may know his book series Alex Cross or Women's Murder Club. He currently holds a Guinness World Record for most bestselling hardcover fiction titles by a single author. Another thing you might notice is that this is one of his few children/young adult books. This is the first book in a so-far 5 book series. According to Wikipedia, the series takes place in the same universe as Patterson's Maximum Ride series. Buuut, since I haven't read that series, that means absolutely zip to me. Anyway, let's get to the book itself.

So, we start at a two-page "chapter" called True Confessions, which basically tells us that there are aliens on earth. Including "very nasty sluglike thingies with jowls like water balloons about to burst all over much of Japan and China, as well as New York City and Vancouver." And yes, folks, these aliens are never mentioned again in the book. Pretty freaking lame. Oh, well. Maybe we'll get some action.

We then enter a FOUR CHAPTER PROLOGUE...Don't worry. These chapters are only about 2 pages each. This book does move at a pretty fast pace, however, as the prologue quickly establishes. In a mere 11 pages, Daniel (last name: X) tells us that when he was 3, he was building models of the Wonders of the Ancient World out of Play-Doh, and making a dog tick talk and do tricks. How does he do this? ...uh, we'll get to that in a few posts. And the answer might not be as satisfying as you may imagine. Yeah...we're getting into some pretty weird stuff. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, I assure you. A few pages later, both of Daniel's parents are killed by a 6.5 foot tall mantis-like alien called The Prayer. ...weird name, but OK. It seems that The Prayer is looking for The List (its mentioned about 18 times in the prologue, so it's hard to forget), a list of the top evil aliens on Earth. So after the alien guns down Daniel's parents, he goes to look for the 3-year old himself. Obviously, Daniel has intelligence years ahead of his time, so he actually turns into a tick, escapes, and finds The List.

SO! That's the prologue of Daniel X book 1. Sorry that it couldn't be longer, but I have some more things to do. Anyway, Patterson certainly knows how to get a reader hyped for the rest of the story. The prologue moves very quickly, though the extremely short chapters are a bit distracting. But this is just a taste of what's to come, so stay tuned!

-Bento