Review : Gone

Posted by kay on January 19, 2010 9:33 am in 4.5 stars reads | 12 comments

Gone by Michael Grant
Pages : 558
Genre : YA, Speculative Fiction
Series : Gone, Book 1
My Rating :

From the Back of the Book :

In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears.

Gone.

Everyone except for the young. Teens. Middle schoolers. Toddlers. But not a single adult. No teachers, no cops, no doctors, no parents. Gone, too, are the phones, internet, and television. There is no way to get help. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents—unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers—that grow stronger by the day.

It’s a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen and war is imminent…

I saw Gone on a table at the bookstore when it first came out and was immediately intrigued by it, although at the time I wasn’t yet into YA reading. I finally decided to read it at the end of December, while studying, and it was such a great diversion! At 558 pages, the book isn’t small, but I wasn’t bored one second of it.

One of the things that made this book great was the cast of characters : numerous, yes, but also very varied – varied in ages, races, sexual orientations, attitudes, abilities, etc. Written from a third person point of view, the book follows different kids in turns, but mainly Sam and his closest friends, Astrid and Quinn. They all have very distinct personalities, and I enjoyed that Grant wrote a narration both from the “good” side and the “bad” side. Their reactions to the events are believable, and I liked how the author described the horror without going too far with the details.

The way each of the characters developed was complex, and although there is a traditional “good versus evil” plot, it wasn’t too simple a story. Grant definitely has a talent to build an intricate setting and create a mystery. The blurb on the cover says that “If Stephen King had written Lord of the Flies, it might have been a little like this”; I haven’t read Lord of the Flies (I know, I know…) but the trapped community was definitely reminiscent of Stephen King’s work!

There is so much we don’t know as we start the story (and the action begins right from the start), and the pace really makes it a page-turner. I wanted to know where and how did the adults disappeared? Why the mutations? All the answers aren’t given all in this first novel though, so if you read it and enjoy it, be prepared to grab the next book, Hunger, as soon as possible!

Series Reading Order :

1. Gone
2. Hunger
3. Lies (May 2010)