Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure

Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure

Author	James Patterson
Cover artist	Larry Rostant
Language	English and French
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
Preceded by	Angel: A Maximum Ride Novel
Followed by	Maximum Ride Forever

Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure is the eighth book in the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson. It was released on August 6, 2012.

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. A five-chapter excerpt from Nevermore was released in the paperback "Deluxe Edition" of Angel: A Maximum Ride Novel in February 2012. When compared to the completed novel, there were a few paragraph and wording discrepancies between the Deluxe Edition Excerpt and Nevermore, leading some to speculate that either Patterson or his publisher decided that the draft required substantial revision.

For instance, the first paragraph of Chapter 1 from the Deluxe edition excerpt reads as follows:

I don't know whether you've been on a motorcycle or not, but I must say this: if I didn't have wings, and if motorcycles weren't -- essentially -- extremely cool death traps, I would want to ride on one all the time. It's about the closest thing to flying there is. The wind whipping through your hair, the sense of freedom, the bugs slamming into your face -- it's flying, but on the ground, burning gasoline and making a lot of noise. What's not to love?

While similar text does not appear in the released version of Nevermore until eight paragraphs into Chapter 9:

I don't know whether you've been on a motorcycle (if your parents don't know, please do not nod now), but I must say this: if I didn't have wings, and if motorcycles weren't, essentially, extremely cool death traps, I would want to ride on one all the time. It's about the closest thing to flying there is. The wind whipping through your hair, the sense of freedom, the bugs slamming into your face -- it's flying, but on the ground, burning gasoline and making a lot of noise. What's not to love?

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 tells him that they will kill or hurt Max if he doesn't which scares Dylan.

Meanwhile, Fang and his group go out, but they are attacked by Erasers. Among the Erasers is Ari's clone, wielding an RPG. Fang's gang, consisting of Fang himself, two boys named Holden and Ratchet, and three girls named Maya, who is Max's clone, Kate, and Star, take on the Erasers. In the midst of battle, Kate and Star reveal they are traitors. Fang and the other boys are so caught up in this new dilemma that they forget to watch the fighting. In the air, Maya's injuries, inflicted by Ari, cause her to fall from the sky. Fang catches her, but Ari delivers a fatal, rib-crushing blow while she is in Fang's arms. Maya soon dies while Fang is still holding her.

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 but instantly feels guilty about it. She is operated on and realizes that Jeb and Dr. Martinez are working for the 99 Percenters. She realizes in horror that the white coats have clipped her wings and blinded her like Iggy.

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. Three guys from the 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 sees Fang coming. Max and he 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 jumps out of the window onto the broken concrete and dies. They find Angel, and it turns out that she is not completely blind, for as she says, "Everything is kind of a blur." Reunited, the flock heads back to Oregon.

Dylan watches Fang and Max reconciling from half a mile away. He is angry and flies into the neighborhood causing destruction to cars, windows and other property. The Flock sees this on T.V. and Max ventures out to find him but can't. At night the alarms go off again. Max opens the door thinking that it is Dylan. However, it is Jeb, Ari, and a hundred other Erasers. Jeb tells them that Fang has to die because his DNA is the next step to immortality and all the 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 the flock believes they are connected. He then tries to kill Fang and almost succeeds until Max begs him not to. He then leaves.

Dr. Martinez comes in a helicopter and explains that she was brainwashed by Jeb and tells them that 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 tree house (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 spreading. If it did happen, there are caves and high technology force fields 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 in Max's tree house when Dylan appears. 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 to the cliffs, not 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. Before Angel came Dylan also 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. They fall from the sky. Fang wakes her up. They then see a giant tsunami. Fang says he loves Max, and holds her face with his hands, and she understands that it would be okay. They kiss multiple times before the water 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 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 dead. 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. Dylan and Fang go to see if there is anything left of the tree house village and 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 in the new world after the apocalypse. Fang comes back and Max says she loves him. They hold hands and see the shadows of their figures together. She tells the reader, "This is my time. The time of Maximum Ride."

Critical reception

The novel was received with an overwhelmingly negative reception from both critics and fans of the series, being criticized for being riddled with plot holes and stereotypical story clichés, and having little literary value.