I'm giving away my copy of "Gone" to one lucky reader! Click here for the contest!
"Gone"
by Michael Grant
Source: Bought
My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
My Review:
The kids of Perdido Beach suddenly-very suddenly-find themselves alone. Everyone over age 14 has disappeared without a trace. It's up to the kids to make their own society to keep themselves alive. Most of the kids want Sam to lead them, but he's not sure he's comfortable in the role. His new friends, Astrid and Edilio, and his best friend, Quinn, have to help convince him to take his place as the leader of their newfound society, as well as struggle to stay alive amidst chaos, bullies, and the strange students from rival school, Coates Academy. Did I mention that Sam can shoot lightning bolts from his hands? And he's not the only one with supernatural powers.
I think this book just wasn't my style more than anything else, but I do enjoy most YA fiction so I wanted to share my honest feelings about the book. I didn't realize that the teens in this book were so young, only 14. I also didn't know there would be so much violence.
The main reason that I didn't really enjoy this book was because of the violence. There is a lot of violence in this book, the author does not gloss over any gory details. Also, there are some downright evil characters with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The line between good and evil is very clear cut here. The teens are either very good or very bad. In fact, there were only one or two charcters who struggled with whether or not they were on the side of good or evil. Those characters, Quinn and Orc, really stand out as the most interesting to me.
This book definitely took some cues from "Lord of the Flies", so it didn't seem like a totally new concept. Also, I really felt like I as reading James Patterson's "Maximum Ride" all over again, although I did enjoy this book more.
The writing in the book was good and I liked the fact that there were so many characters to read about. Each one was fully fleshed out. I liked the way that the characters were split up into different subplots before coming together at the end. I was most interested in Lana, left stranded in the woods with her dog, Patrick, after the 'poof.' Also, I liked Albert and the way he took over running the McDonalds to keep everyone fed. I found the main characters, Sam, Astrid, and Caine, pretty average and I didn't like reading about Mary changing diapers at the day care at all.
Main Characters: 3/5
Supporting Characters: 4/5
Setting: 5/5
Romance: 2/5
Uniqueness: 3/5
Cover: 4/5 (Love it! The picture is beautiful and the yellow is so eye grabbing!)
Writing: 4/5
Bottom Line: Mostly I was turned off by the graphic details of violence and too much detail about dirty diapers, etc. However, the writing was great and fast-paced, and I can see how someone with different tastes would enjoy the story.
Hmmm...wondering how my daughter and I will like this read. Thanks for the heads up on the violence. Good to know for discussion purposes.
ReplyDeleteoooo sounds fab! I need to pick a copy of this up. Thanks for the violence warning. I love knowing that before I get in to a book.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading my review, Deanna and Juju!! I hope my review helps :)
ReplyDeleteHmm, I've always wondered about this book...3/5? Maybe I'll try seeing if it's at my library, instead of buying it (especially if it's just a bunch of violence, because that gets old pretty fast).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review!
That's interesting that you were put off by the violence. Although I don't like too much violence, I liked that he didn't gloss over any gory details. Hunger however, (Gone is better than its sequel isn't that sad?) has WAY too much violence. I don't know if you read that one yet, but I'm curious to see how you would react to it.
ReplyDeleteThe_Critic, Thanks for reading my review. I didn't really enjoy this one, so I don't think I'm going to read the rest of the series, especially if you think the sequel is even more violent! I checked out your blog, but wasn't able to leave a comment-are your comments disabled?? Thanks for visiting!
ReplyDeleteI ran across a free read of "Gone" at HarperTeen.com and loved it so much I immediately bought the sequel and this one although I had already read it. I can't wait for book 3 which will be out in May. I have the "Maximum Ride" books but haven't read them. You have me curious about them again, so may drag them out to read as my next series.
ReplyDeletealterlisa AT yahoo DOT com
http://lisaslovesbooksofcourse.blogspot.com/
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