Crazy House

Authors: James Patterson & Gabrielle Charbonnet

Series: Crazy House #1

Publisher: Jimmy Patterson

Release Date: May 15, 2018

Tries way too hard to be the next Hunger Games and falls short.

Sometime in the future, the United States is known as the United and the population is regulated with strict rules and crime supposedly nonexistent. Cassie is 17 and lives with her twin sister Becca, but when Becca disappears, Cassie knows something is going on and goes looking for her twin. Becca isn’t the first kid to go missing and so far, none of them have been found. While Cassie is looking for her sister, Becca finds herself in a Crazy House, a prison with many other kids and no way out. Her only hope is that Cassie will find her before it’s too late.

James Patterson is a very popular author, and he can be a very good author at times. With Crazy House I felt like it tried far too hard to be the next Hunger Games novel and fell far short of reaching that mark. Overall, the story was ok but I had no connection with the characters and the story itself was rushed. Had the story been fleshed out over several more books it might have been salvageable. My other issue with these books is how they are marketed as YA and still have so much language.