Four years ago, I Am Number Four was published and took the book world by storm. All alien and sci-fi lovers everywhere were ecstatic to read Pittacus Lore’s (a pseudonym for James Frey and Jobie Hughes) new book. The line on the front was enough to pull them all in: “Three are dead. I am number four.” Almost two weeks ago, unknown to most, the fifth book in the series arrived: The Revenge of Seven.

Between the ghastly dialogue and the confusing plot, The Revenge of Seven and the books preceding it are a waste of time. Not only is every book left on a un-suspenseful cliffhanger, but nothing is ever resolved. The Revenge of Seven starts with the problems at the beginning of the last book and ends with the same problems. There isn’t a point to writing a book if the author doesn’t bother to fix anything.

The Revenge of Seven continues the story started in I am Number Four with John Smith, an alien from a far off planet, trying to defeat other aliens called Mogadorians with the help of his friends, a mixture of other aliens from his home planet that all have numbers for names and regular people from Earth. One of the most frustrating parts of the book series is the focus on John’s on-again, off-again human girlfriend Sarah and his moronic flirtation with another girl from his home planet, called Six. This isn’t a problem so much in The Revenge of Seven, probably because the author has paired up all the other characters and spends too many pages on their romances.

A word of advice: if you’re going to write a story about scary aliens invading Earth, stick to the plot. Nobody cares about any of that other rubbish. If readers wanted to read a romance novel, they would have picked up The Fault in Our Stars or The Notebook.

Hopefully the next book will end the series. Maybe the problems from the first book will actually get resolved. The authors should have taken their cue from Twilight and figured out that people can only deal with plotless horror for three books at the most.