Customer Reviews
How did Patterson's name get on this book? 
2008-10-10
I guarantee he never even read it. This is a book about what goes on in sailing written by a guy who's never been on a boat.
Paragraph after paragraph - once they're on the boat, the actions either can't happen, wouldn't happen or contradict what has already been said.
If you've ever sailed, this is maddening. If you've never sailed, you will have to assume that sailors are schizophrenic superheroes who, most of the time, transform into completely useless idiots. That's what the author would have us believe.
Horrible unreadable book. Sailors beware.
Quick read, lacking substance 
2008-10-09
I read this book in less than 24 hours. The chapters are short like most Patterson books. This book lacked detail and the detail it had was humorous.
There is a wealthy lawyer from Manhattan and it is stated that you can tell he is rich because he has his own aircraft. The aircraft listed is a Cessna Skyhawk. This aircraft is a training aircraft and one used by most novice aviators of middle class, not overpaid lawyers from NY.
This book reads just slightly better than a Encyclopedia Brown book. Hopefully Patterson will stop mass producing books and create something well researched.
Too implausable to be enjoyed 2008-10-08
The mother of a wealthy, dysfunctional family decides to spend a summer sailing with her teenage children in hopes of improving relationships between siblings and their mother. They invite the uncle of the children to join them as captain of the yacht. The children's stepfather, a wealthy lawyer, stays home in New York so the mother and her children can bond better without competing with the husband/wife relationship.
Things start to go wrong aboard the boat from day one. Someone has tampered with the ship, so it almost sinks, but before that happens, the daughter tries to commit suicide by jumping overboard! The plot slides downhill from there.
The writers of this book seem to assume that their readers will know nothing about boats or boating and will accept any impossible fabrication, e.g., a family on a sinkiing ship that doesn't try to contact the Coast Guard for help, and giant snakes living in deserted Bahama islands that attack people and eat them, The entire story is based on the premise that the shipwrecked family put a note in a coke bottle, which was immediately eaten by a giant tuna, which was caught the next day or so and the bottle recovered, which ultimately led to the family's rescue. If that sounds like a good read to you, you will enjoy this book!
AWFUL DISSAPOINTMENT! 2008-09-24
As a James patterson fan, I was deeply dissaointed with this book. Its obvious he is just letting his name be attached to books just to make money. This was more predictable, fake, and unrealistic than a silly movie.
I was flipping the pages literally stunned that each event was ACTUALLY happening because it was so stupid and surreal.
Dont waste your time. This book stinks.
The Patterson name must be a stamp. 
2008-09-09
James Patterson has written some memorable thrillers but Sail seems to be written by a ghost writer who is new (or tired) of the genre and pushed to this book on the masses using the Patterson label. Don't get me wrong, this is a quick and easy read, but the characters never seem to grasp the readers interest. The scene is set when the dad is killed in a sailing accident and the family tumbles into chaos. The mother is a character that should have been written out of the story. The dialog seems to date back to the Twenties and the characters are all flat. Does this sound like the Patterson we know? I've given it three stars but could easily understand someone giving it one star - what I can't understand is someone giving it five stars.
Editor of the highly recommended novel: Fates by Georgiou Tino: Best of 2008
Formula Book, Computer Script Designed 2008-09-06
Since the death of her husband, Anne Dunne and her three children have struggled in every way. In a last ditch effort to save the family, Anne plans an elaborate sailing vacation to bring everyone together once again. But only an hour out of port, everything is going wrong. The teenage daughter, Carrie, is planning to drown herself. The teenage son, Mark, is high on drugs and ten-year-old Ernie is nearly catatonic. This is the worst vacation ever.
Anne manages to pull things together bit by bit, but just as they begin feeling like a family again, something catastrophic happens. Survival may be the least of their concerns.
Written with the blistering pace and shocking twists that only James Patterson can master, SAIL takes "Lost" and "Survivor" to a new level of terror.
Snakes, Sharks and an Exploding Boat 
2008-09-06
Katherine Dunne lost her husband four years earlier to a scuba diving accident. Eleven months ago she married a shark of man, Attorney Peter Caryle. Carlyle is after Kathy's dough and he doesn't want to wait for it. To that end he employs Gerard Devoux, a sailboat savvy hitman to smooth his way to all that cash.
Katherine feels she's going bonkers, her oldest, eighteen-year-old Yalie freshman Carrie is a bulimic on the verge of suicide, next in line is sixteen-year-old, pot-smoking, spoiled Mark and lastly there's ten-year-old quiet and troubled Ernie. These people are about as dysfunctional as you can get and to bind them together, heal them maybe, Katherine decides to set sail in the Caribbean on the family boat. Of course they need an experienced captain and who better than an ex-lover, brother in law named Jake.
Needless to say a lot of bad stuff goes wrong on this three hour tour (well it was more than tree hours). Carrie tries to kill herself, Mark gets caught smoking dope, they almost sink, the boat blows up, they're lost on an island, where they fend off sharks and a really big snake and their epirb (emergency position indicating radio beacon) has been rigged by Devoux to tell the world that the castaways Dunne are they aren't.
Meanwhile hitman Devoux's got himself a seaplane and guess who he's coming after?
Okay, did I like it. Yeah, I did, though one has to wonder these days if Mr. Patterson is really writing these stories. The characters were quickly sketched, not really fleshed out, but that's okay in this kind of story. There were too many sharks, but that's okay too. That snake was a bit much, but it'll give you goose bumps. And as one who has actually been on a boat in the Caribbean when it's sinking, I can tell you I was right there with these people. This is good entertainment.
Sail 2008-09-04
Had problem : received two copies of the book from different sources.
Feel sure that the error was on my end, and would have returned one but felt the process was too cumbersome and not worth the effort.The book itself was okay, nothing special. Service by your suppliers was excellent.
It's tough doing business when one is an old man with fat fingers.
W. Henderson
Easily one of the worst books I've read this year. 2008-09-04
This book was really bad. I had read a Patterson book before and remember that I didn't like his style of writing then, way too juvenile. This book just confirmed that line of thinking for me. I can't believe this is best selling author material.
I took the chance because I love stories of people shipwrecked, survival, that kind of thing. There was maybe 5 pages of that in this book and it was a joke.
The plot was so completely predictable, shallow and the sex scenes were written like a hormonal 15 year old boy would write.
A great read 
2008-09-03
Always love his books - this one was very suspenseful. I really enjoyed it and couldn't put it down.
