Review: Crazy House

Crazy House by James Patterson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Out of the two twins, Cassie is the good twin and Becca is the wild twin. Cassie wants to follow the rules of her cell and is always in the house between 10p and 6a. Not a minute out of that time frame. Becca though... well Cassie woke up one more and Becca wasn't in the house. So she's definitely a rule breaker.

But when Becca doesn't come home for over a day, Cassie knows that Becca is in trouble rather than being a trouble maker. Still, Cassie does the right thing and reports Becca is missing, but no one in her town will listen to her. Instead, they think she is starting to cause trouble just like the rest of her family and she starts to get shunned by the authorities.

Meanwhile, Becca has been kidnapped and taken to a prison...that is death row. Becca has no idea what she has done, but she is not going to take this treatment lightly. In fact, she fights, and fights, and fights. Only when the final straw has happened does Becca start to follow the rules - but unwillingly.

Because no one will help Cassie, she decides to take matters into her own hands and leaves the comfort of her home. But when she crosses the border, Cassie then gets kidnapped by the very same people!

Now the sisters are made to fight each other, fight other kids, and watch kids get injected and die right before their eyes. Since they are together now, and know that the other is somewhat safe...well at least alive...they are determined to find a way out of this prison and back to their lives before.

But all of what they have been put through was for a reason. And when they find out why, they realize that they really know nothing at all about their own lives.

This was an...interesting book. I was really intrigued by the title, then by the synopsis. And to top it off, it's a standalone book! No waiting around for the sequel!

But it was an odd adventure once I got to the very end. It seems like they said it was a stand alone, but the way it ended makes all of the readers speculate when the next book will be released. And to be honest, if there is a sequel, I probably won't pick it up.

I mean, I enjoyed the book for the most part. I loved how dedicated Cassie was to finding Becca and I loved how both sisters knew they had to fight to survive, no matter what their personal opinions are. But it was just the ending, when the "big reveal" happened, that the book became lost to me. Because I called most of the "secrets" throughout the book and it was just another typical dystopian novel to me.

And, I dunno, it just didn't captivate me as much as I was hoping for. Because Patterson wrote this book, I flew through it. His 2 page chapters really make a reader fly through a book, no matter what the book is. But I was just waiting for that moment that I really clicked with the book and it didn't happen at all...

So I'm glad I got a chance to read this, but I've read better by him and I've read better dystopian novels as well. I think readers will be thrilled if the authors decide to write another novel, but I'm content with what I've read and now know what the novel is about without the mystery appeal behind the synopsis.

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