Review of House of Robots: Robots Go Wild

In book two of the House of Robots series, it’s ‘bot brains versus ‘bot brawn in an all-out war!

Sammy Hayes-Rodriguez and his ‘bro-bot’ E are making new friends every day as E works as his bedridden sister Maddie’s school proxy. But disaster strikes when E malfunctions just in time to be upstaged by the super-cool new robot on the block – and loses his ability to help Maddie. Now it’s up to Sammy to figure out what’s wrong with E and save his family!

Robots Go Wild Review

Robots go Wild is the perfect continuation to the House of Robots series. Patterson and Grabenstein do a great job giving us a very human set of characters, even if half of them have motherboards instead of brains. Both my child and I were able to sink into the story, rooting for E and sneering at SS-10K. And then there’s Maddie. Even though she has little on-page time, this book is really all about Maddie, and the fight to give her something approximating a typical school-kid existence.

 I absolutely loved the various chances that Robots Go Wild gave me to discuss deeper issues with the mini-reviewer in a relatable way. As I’ve talked about before, she is battling an illness that gives her the ability to relate to Maddie. Some of her fears and questions get brought up during these books as they happen to Maddie, and give us a chance to reassure her without supposedly talking about her. All the robots, even Drone Malone, got a bit more than introductory page-time in this book. The ending had us both on edge and then whooping. It was an epic, last-minute ending, and E is probably the absolute coolest robot in existence.

This is definitely a book you need to pick up – though if you haven’t read the first one yet – I would definitely start with that one. It’s a highly entertaining book for children and adults to enjoy with a positive message.

If, for some reason, you wish to avoid spoilers, consider this the end of the review and just scroll down to the very bottom where you see the Coin Rating to find the technical details.

Everything goes wrong in this book, and it seems like the House of Robots might become the House of Nots. The parents are on the edge of giving up, the robots are going crazy, and Sammy is desperately trying to hold everything together. He can’t do it, though, not alone, and it ends up being Maddie who saves the day in the end with a very on-point speech. When I was reading her little speech about how she wants to give up, but can’t because what if she gives up too soon and some doctor would have been able to save her, I choked up. Where Sammy has a lot of typical kid problems and is relatable on that level, Maddie is an entirely different ball of fish that kids with serious illnesses will identify with.

Sammy, though, shouldn’t be overlooked for his own unique angle. He’s the brother of sibling with a serious illness, and that knowledge – how sick Maddie is – has permeated most aspects of his life. I mean, it’s the whole reason the house is a House of Robots. Its all to keep Maddie safe. And Sammy loves Maddie. He made that clear in the first book, and it continues to shine through here. He wants his sister to have the best chance at life she can, and he’ll do anything to make sure that happens. Even when E is going crazy – yes, he’s sad because he misses E – he’s ultimately upset and determined to fix things because E is the only way Maddie gets to go to school and he knows how it important it is to her.

This is a great book with a plot that gets under your skin in a good way. You have to love it. Plus there’s the whole robotic football tournament. We got this book from the library, but we will be buying it for the Sci-Fi & Scary household.

Buy House of Robots: Robots go Wild now on Amazon

Title: Robots Go Wild | Series: House of Robots | Authors: James Patterson (site), Chris Grabenstein (site) | Illustrator: Juliana Neufeld (site) | Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (site) | Pub. Date: 2015-11-23 | Pages: 336 | ISBN13: 9780316284790| Genre: Children’s Fiction | Language: English | Triggers: Hospitalization Episode – Chronically Ill Kid. Rating: 5 out of 5 | Date Read: 2016-4-20 | Source: Library