Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure
| Author | James Patterson |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Young Adult Fiction |
| Publisher | Little, Brown And Company |
Publication date | August 6, 2012 (North America) |
| Publication place | United States of America |
| Media type | Book |
| Pages | 368[1] |
| Preceded by | Angel: A Maximum Ride Novel |
Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure is the eighth and final book in the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson. It was released on August 6, 2012.
Delay
First copies of the preceding book, Angel: A Maximum Ride Novel listed the release date of Nevermore as being some time in February 2012. However, in the summer of 2011, fans of the series discovered a publication by the publisher which announced that the book had been pushed back to August 6, 2012.[2] A five-chapter excerpt from Nevermore was released in the paperback "Deluxe Edition" of Angel: A Maximum Ride Novel in February 2012.[3] No explanation was ever given by James Patterson or the publisher for the apparent delay.
Plot
The prologue is Angel's vision of Max's death.The book starts off with Max and her Flock preparing to go to school while they live in Oregon in a house Nino Pierpont gave them. Max is watching T.V. until it stops working. Iggy fixes it. The reporters are talking about a new group called the 99 Percenters who are quickly growing into a powerful group. They don't know what their purpose is. Dylan comes in and Max snaps at him telling him that they will be late. Dylan points out that Max is still in her pajamas. At school, a teacher tells Dylan to capture Fang so they can perform tests on him. Dylan refuses to do so. The teacher tell him that they will kill or hurt Max if he doesn't which scares Dylan.
Meanwhile, Fang and his group go out and are attacked by Erasers. Fang thinks one of the Erasers is Ari (but turns out to be his clone). Fang, Holden, Ratchet and Maya fight while Kate and Star refuse to. They reveal they are on the Erasers' side. Ari wounds Maya and she dies in Fang's arms.
Angel has a vision of this while she is in a lab. However, she thinks it is Max who died. When she hears Fang tell his group Maya is dead, she feels relieved. Then she feels guilty about it. She is operated on and realizes that Jeb and Dr. Martinez are working for the 99 Percenters. The whitecoats clip her wings and make her go blind.
Afterwards, Fang leaves Ratchet and Holden. He hears the Voice in his head telling him to go to Max. He goes to an Internet cafe and searches 'Maximum Ride'. He finds out that Max is going to a private school called Newton in Oregon. His wing is injured so hitchhikes there. A group of 99 Percenters push him off a cliff but he survives.
Meanwhile, Max and Dylan are having a date in a treehouse that Dylan built. Their candlelit dinner is interrupted by Nudge, Iggy and Gazzy spying on them. Their Voices have told them to record everything so they have a video camera which they filmed Max and Dylan's kiss with. Max is angry so she kicks the table causing the candle to fall over. This sets fire to the tree and the treehouse. Once the Flock gets to safety she apologizes to Dylan saying that the treehouse was the most beautiful thing that she had ever seen. Dylan tells her that she's the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.
An alarm goes off that night and the Flock see Fang coming. Max and him reconcile making Dylan very angry. Fang tells them about a comment on his blog saying that a kid knows where Angel is. They go to where he said Angel was. Earlier in the book, Angel describes how smoke filled the building and they left her clamped to the table. The rest of the Flock sees the fire. Once it dies down they go inside the building to search for Angel. They find the dead bodies of whitecoats in a circle suggesting they knew what was going to happen. They see Mark again who has some sort of disease and jumps out of the window onto the broken concrete and dies. They find Angel and go back to Oregon.
Dylan watches Fang and Max kissing from miles away. He is angry and goes into the town causing destruction to store banners, electric wires etc. The Flock sees this on T.V. and Max goes out to find him. She can't find him. At night the alarms go off again. The Flock runs out thinking that it is Dylan. However, it is Jeb, Ari and a hundred other Erasers. Jeb tells them that Fang has to die as he has a gene which is the next link to immortality and scientists will try to hunt him down to get it. Max refuses to let that happen and knocks out Jeb. Dylan comes in and kills Ari which kills all the Erasers as they are connected. He then tries to kill Fang and almost succeeds until Max begs him not to. He then leaves.
Dr.Martinez comes and explains that she was brainwashed by Jeb and Nino Pierpont will take all of them to a safe place in his jet. They bring Jeb along and leave him in the plane under guard when they get to the tropical island. All of them have their own treehouse (including Total and Akila who share one) which was designed to suit their personality. They also see other enhanced kids who live there. Dr.Martinez explains that a deadly disease called H8E has been released to kill all the humans. The bird-kids are immune to it and the others who are on the island are safe because precautions have been set up to prevent the disease from coming. If it did happen, there are underground caves that they can go into and live in until the disease dies out. Iggy and Ella see each other again and kiss.
Fang and Max are kissing on top of a tree when Dylan comes down. They are both furious to see him. He says that he saw something large that he can't describe from above and everyone has to go down to the caves. Max and Fang refuse to believe him. He then says that he will tell everyone else to leave and then come back up there and if Max decides to stay and die he will do the same. Max sees the people going down into the caves. She sees her flock and tells them to stay. Only Angel hears her. She says they have to go. Max disagrees. Angel says that Max should listen to her because Max always listens to the Voice. She reveals that she is the Voice. Max says that she will go die with the humans. Fang tells Max that whatever the outcome, they'll face it together. Dylan tells Max that after he gets everyone to safety, he will come back to her, even if it means that he will die with her; he tells Max that the only way he wants his life to end is with her.. Angel is upset and flies away.Then the sky explodes making it very hot. Max thinks they are going to die but they don't. They then see a giant tsunami. Fang and Max say they love each other and they kiss multiple times and the water then swallows them.
In the first epilogue, Max is talking to the reader. She says that she is the luckiest girl in the world because she died in the arms of the person she truly loved. She says that she knows the reader is wondering, like she is wondering whether she was supposed to save the world or was it a lie. She wonders whether her life was a metaphor for what we're all supposed to do with our lives, that we can't leave anything up to fate or chance or for someone else to clean up. Or whether it was a lesson that you have to seize the day and hold on to your loved ones. She hopes that in the end her life meant all of those those things. She says she hears Fang calling her from far away and she doesn't know what's next but she's ready to see. She tells the reader to save their own world.
In the second epilogue, Max is underwater but she thinks she is in heaven. She hears singing that sounds like 'strangled whales'. It feels good. She sighs with relief. She then realizes that she is breathing, alive and underwater. Dylan pulls her out. Fang and Angel are also there. The island has been broken into many smaller charred islands. Dylan and Fang go search for other entrances to the caves as the entrance the people used to get into is underwater. Angel enters Dr. Martinez's thoughts and says that they are monitoring satellite connection all over the world from inside the cave and whole countries may be covered in water, ash or flame.
Max looks at the island while she is sitting with Angel. Half of it is underwater and the other half is covered in high cliffs. She says that she and the others were made for this. They were made to survive. Fang comes back and Max says she loves him. They fly off hand in hand. She tells the reader that this is the time of Maximum Ride.
Reception
So far, the novel has received mixed-to-negative reviews.