"I Am Number Four" by Pittacus Lore

440 pages

“John” looks like a typical fifteen-year-old boy, but he’s actually far from it. When he was five, his home planet of Lorien was attacked by the vicious Mogadorians, who had depleted all of their planet’s resources and needed those of Lorien. The Mogadorians nearly wiped out the entire Lorien race, but a small group escaped to Earth, where they dispersed and have been hiding ever since. They know that the Mogadorians will not rest until they have killed all of the Loriens in order to prevent them from reorganizing themselves and trying to take back their home planet. John is one of nine members of the Garde, which are the Loriens who develop special powers during their adolescence. Each of the nine has a Lorien guardian, called a Cepan, and is protected by a strong charm that prevents them from being killed until those with the preceding numbers are dead. So Number One is the first who can be killed, then Number Two, and so on. John is Number Four. When we get into the story, John has just discovered that the Mogadorians have tracked down and murdered Number Three, so now they will be after him. He and his guardian, Henri, have to take off and move across the country again. John is used to this, as he’s spent the past ten years moving around with Henri and changing his identity over and over again as he and Henri try to blend in. He’s tired of leaving people behind and making up new stories about who he is. When he and Henri arrive in Ohio and begin to plan their defense against the Mogadorians, John discovers that his powers are beginning to develop. To make matters even more complicated, he makes a real human for the first time in his life—and falls in love with a human girl.

Thinking about this review has been difficult for me because I can’t decide how I feel about this book. I really loved parts of it, while other parts of it bugged me. There are a few really far-out things that don’t really fit into the rest of the story, and it seems like they’re just thrown in there because the author thought they would be cool. The romantic part of the story was annoying to me because it’s way too perfect and easy—the most beautiful girl in school instantly falls for him; within a few weeks they are hopelessly in love; and she immediately accepts and is not too creeped out by his “I am an alien” story. With all of that said, I have to admit that I got totally sucked into “I Am Number Four” and couldn’t put it down. I loved the characters—John, Henri, Sam, and of course Bernie Kosar!—and really cared about them and what happened to them. The story has a lot of elements of traditional science fiction but the details are different from anything that I’ve read before. This is a great book for people who like stories about aliens but get bored when there is a lot of scientific and technical information. The end left me hanging and anxious for the next book in the series to come out!