Gone - Michael Grant

Gone - Michael Grant

Pages: 570
Publisher: Egmont Press
Release Date: 6th April 2009

Other Titles in this Series: Hunger (US June/09, UK 05/04/10)

‘One minute the teacher was there, the next, he was gone. There. Gone.’

In the blink of an eye all the adults disappear in a small town in southern California and no one knows why. First a car crash; a house up in flames; then a complete communication breakdown…

Suddenly cut off from the outside world, those that are left are trapped, and there’s no help on the way. They must do all they can to survive. Chaos rules the streets. Gangs begin to form. Sides are chosen - strong or weak. Cruel or humane.

A new world order is rising, and, even scarier, some survivors have power - power that no one has ever seen before…

Gone is one of the best books that I’ve read this year. It was a brilliant start to an amazing series.

The first thing that struck me about Gone was how mature all of the main characters were. They all seemed so much older than fourteen. When I was fourteen I didn’t know a single guy who would run into a burning building to save a child they didn’t know like Sam did. I suppose that Sam’s situation would have made him grow up pretty quickly, though.

One of the things that I really liked about Gone was how the seemingly unconnected characters that began the novel all came together as the story progressed. The way that all of their stories intertwined helped to show the ways in which the situation affected different people.

In lots of the post-apocalyptic novels that I’ve read, a life-changing event takes place that changes the world but has no other repercussions that the obvious ones. That definitely wasn’t the case in Gone. Like Astrid said, the laws of nature changed and that set off other changes that affected all aspects of the character’s lives. I really like the way that Michael Grant did this; it was individual and very clever.

The preview of Hunger at the end of the book made me eager to find out what happens next to Sam and the gang after a rather ominous excerpt. I highly recommend this fabulous book.

Sophie