Mar had talked about this series the whole time she was reading it when the books first started coming out and since I needed some quick books to listen to while doing house work I decided to give the first book a try after finding a Playaway version at the library.
My thinking going in also was that this first book of the series is written by Rick Riordan and I enjoyed the first book in the Percy Jackson series so why not try it. Saying that, this doesn't speak for Rick Riordan's talent as a writer in my eyes. The Percy Jackson series is high and above better than The 39 Clues.
When Mar first told me about this series I had to hold back my feelings from that point. I've never really seen an American property pull of this sort of media tie in and make it work well but let me try to just think about what I felt about The Maze Of Bones and it alone.
This book just couldn't make up its mind what it wanted to be. At times it felt like they wanted to go a A Series Of Unfortunate Events direction, at others it seemed to slip into R.L. Stine words and setups, but in the end it really just felt like they had hired a writer to start a series based off an idea to sell books, trading cards, and online gaming. And in that they found a success.
The story itself focuses on a family and the different limbs of that family that seemed to be related to every famous person in history. That's a trap a lot of writers have stumbled into. It would have been ok, with a few known names but throwing too many famous people into the families story isn't using history, its lazy writing.
But boy if there is one thing I know about its lazy writing.
The lead characters aren't strong enough to fill this story. You want them to be stronger. You want the opposition to be more filled out. But you just drift through the story looking for something real to happen. Just seems way too cookie cutter to me. You could feel the outline, taste the story map.
Now with that being said I can see why so many young people and adults have enjoyed these books. They are very quick adventure stories with that interactive tie in element that brings many a lot of enjoyment. It just didn't do that for me personally.
And to end before I give my rating. The title of book one is way too big of a giveaway. They should have come up with something else. It was basically like reading the ending of the book before you start Chapter One.
2 out of 5 stars
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