Ok, well this was not exactly what I was expecting from a James Patterson book. Granted this was a collaboration between him and another author so it makes you wonder how much he actually wrote of this. I am not saying that the book was bad, but I am saying that this was not his best work. For the first 26 chapters the story really did seem to drag on. Granted the chapters are short, but that is a big chunk of book to waste. Honestly some people would have probably stopped reading at that point. The thing is, the second part of the book is so much better.
Star Rating: 3 out of 5
In Humans, Bow Down you are brought into a world where the humans themselves are now the slaves of the robots they created. Yeah, that sounds like a story that has been repeated before…Terminator anyone? Anyway, in this world humans are just referred to by numbers and that is how we meet 6. She is this human that for the first half, actually for the majority of the book she is just annoying. Yes she is angry at these robots for enslaving them all, but she was not really likable at all. I didn’t find myself rooting for her until her attitude changed later on close to the last 1/3 of the book.
The you have the Hu-bots, these are robots that are created to resemble humans. They can even eat food for fun if they chose to. Here you meet Mickey-bo and her entire family. She is an Elite robot detective who was more relatable than the human 6. I mean seriously, I preferred her right off the bat, which I assume you are not supposed to do because the robots are “bad”. She has a sweet Dad, a little sister, and a brother Chris who she believed had this Glitch because he had compassion for the humans and he identified as female which was against his programming.
So, 6 steals a car and it is Mickey-bo’s job to find her. Bad stuff goes down and a bunch of humans get killed but it was not Mickey-bo’s fault at all. She tried to stop the other robots from killing the innocent people but they did not listen to her. Turns out the “kill the humans” command came from higher up. Mickey-bo is devastated by this and starts questioning what happened (something she shouldn’t have been because she technically shouldn’t have had any feelings). This is really when you start seeing that there is something different about her. She is beginning to feel, and that is what allows for her empathy upgrade in the later half of this book.
I don’t really want to spoil the book for anyone, but of course there is a battle at the end of the book. Families both human and Hu-bot get torn apart etc. I will admit it, at some of these parts I did get a bit choked up. Mainly because there is that element of people being enslaved to do things and children getting hurt because of the evil things man does.
Pros:
- All of the characters seem to get a little better by the end of the book. Seriously, it was like both Mickey AND 6 were learning to be human. Once we got past that hurdle the book got better.
- They did a great job at humanizing Mickey-bo and her family. Yes, they were Hu-bots, but they really seemed like a loving family trying to do the best they could.
- The battle portion was done extremely well.
- The big reveal that the Premier (the Hu-bot leader) was *Spoiler Alert* *Look away now…..Skip this last bullet point if you don’t want to see the spoiler. You have been warned* was human was fantastic. I really did not expect that. The fact that this world was created due to the hate in one man’s heart was shocking. I really thought he was a hu-bot.
Cons:
- 2/3 of the book were very slow moving and boring. A lot of it is told from the perspective of 6 and she is just an annoying character.
- Seriously, it took forever for the book to get good.
- 6 was so very unlikable. You would think that the main human in the book would be relatable, but no.
Overall:
The book was okay. I really enjoyed the ending, but that did not make up for the fact the book took forever to get interesting. There were parts that really were interesting but it was far and few between. I found myself more interested in Mickey-bo and what she was going to do than I was 6 and I really think that was ok. Would I recommend this book to others? Well, it depends. If you are looking for a YA book for a mature teen I would say yes. There are some parts that are a bit much, such as a girl getting her fingers cut off, which is why I recommend it for a more mature teen. If you are an adult looking for a solid post apocalyptic story in a world taken over by robots…I would probably keep looking. The book wasn’t bad, but it just seemed to drag on a bit. So a 3 rating makes sense….it was good, not great, but obviously I would read more of James Patterson’s books.
~Book 10 completed! 2 books left in Mt Rainer!!~
The Owl's Book Nest 