A Sinking Ship, James Patterson's "Sail" is Not Worth The Time

With a toddler that has endless amounts of energy, I find myself looking for books that are quick and entertaining.  I browse the new books section at the library hoping to find something I can read, and I have read many James Patterson books this way.  Sail looked like it wasn't the typical murder mystery which was an additional lure.

This is a fairly new book, published in summer 2008, and so it was on the bestseller / new books rack at the library (also a 14-day book).  you can only get it in hardcover, so if you want a cheaper version, you'll have to wait until summer 2009 for the paperback.  Like a number of his other books, James Patterson has a co-author, and in this case it is Howard Roughan.


The plot of this book is very simple - The Dunne family disappears on their family boat.  There is no sign of them or their boat, and the emergency beacon sends the coast guard on a search that yields absolutely nothing.  The question of course, is, what happened and where are the Dunnes?  Are they still alive?

Of course, the book opens up a bit differently from what you might expect.  A random guy on his boat makes a huge catch (sailfish) and heads back to town.  When they weigh the fish upside down, a soda bottle pops out of it's mouth with a note in a bottle.  Sure enough, it is from the Dunne family, which raises many questions - are the Dunnes still alive?  Why was the emergency beacon completely wrong?  Etc.

I figured this whole book would be full of suspense, and from the first short chapter where the message in a bottle is found, you just want to know what happened to the Dunnes.  The opening did well to heighten the suspense, since there is a little bit of backtracking to before the Dunnes get on their boat.  You don't jump right to where the family experiences whatever problems that causes them to disappear, so you are sort of on the edge of your seat waiting to find out what kind of disaster is going to happen.

Although after the prologue, "Sail" starts from before the Dunne family gets on their boat to begin their trip, it never felt like there was much character development.  Perhaps I realized this more towards the end of the book, but it was difficult to feel much when I didn't really know the characters.  Before the book starts, there is a "cast of characters", which quickly describes each character.  There and within the book, the authors try to kind of summarize each character, but it's almost like trying to hurriedly paste a stereotype on each one - the pot-smoker college son, the eating-disorder daughter, the overworked Dr. mother who didn't spend enough time with her kids.  There was nothing else to the main characters, and sure I wanted the Dunnes to survive, but that was about it.

There were also some secondary or peripheral characters, and tehese only served to keep the plot barely afloat (excuse the pun!).  For example, there is an agent who has her suspicions about different people and events, but I could barely remember her name, so when it popped up again later in the book, I had to remind myself who the character was.  Again, there were so many supporting characters that only served a very small purpose, but didn't contribute anything else to the book.  It is obvious who are the "good guys" versus the "bad guys", but that is a given.  The characters were so bland and lackluster that I couldn't picture them, and they were nothing more than their title.

Like James Patterson's other books, he does deliver some good shock value in a number of twists and turns.  Because some interesting details are revealed early on that the whole plot hinges on, I wanted to keep reading to get to the outcome.  I think the oly way he keeps his books going is that "nothing is what it appears to be" and you know there is something lurking to be revealed.

But the shock value also seemed like a sad attempt to fill the book enough to make it to the finale.  There is one point in the book where there is a scene with a "crazy" snake - it just made this book seem totally ridiculous.  The book was "sinking" even with all the over-the-top drama that Patterson tried to throw in.  There were plenty of things in the book that were totally implausible - like a giant fish eating the message in a bottle and being caught, all within a matter of a day or so.  There was also a part of the book where someone hears the voices of a dead person, and I thought Patterson was trying to go somewhere with it, but it turns out to be nothing.

I like how James Patterson switches from the point of view, but there were times in this book that it was a little abrupt.  It only changed view a few times, but it was kind of disjointed and not very fluid.  I never felt invested enough in any of the characters, so going back and forth, it felt too scattered. 

Not too far into the book I felt myself skimming through sections.  I did make it through the whole book, but I skimmed through some pretty big portions.  I wanted to know what would happen at the end, and that was the only thing that drove me to get through the whole book. 

The ending was somewhat climactic, but it had a whole bunch of twists and it felt a little dragged out.  Like Patterson was trying to deliver a triple punch at the ending, but it was fizzling.  One of the twists had to do with one of the characters that we didn't know much about, and it was kind of like "so"?  I didn't think the ending was obvious or particularly predictable, but it could have been put together a little better.  In fact, I thought he could have done better with the plot twist, by making one of the characters have a surprising background, but no.  And that's where it left me thinking there should have been more.

"Sail" seemed very amateur and not well written.  I was bored and wanted to just finish the book as soon as possible.  It was like a low-budget movie with cheesy special effects.  If this were made into a movie, I would totally be bored and rolling my eyes.  Despite the twists and some unusual parts to the plot, this was a cookie-cutter story that was not very original. 

Overall, I didn't like the book but it wasn't too horrible.  I didn't have much patience to sit through all the filler, but I did manage to get to the end because I wanted to know what would happen.  I am tempted to give this 3 stars because despite the skimming, I persevered to the end, but it was just boring aside from the basic skeleton of the plot.  2 stars.



James Patterson: http://jamespatterson.com/
You can visit the author's website to read an exerpt.