I discovered Gone one day when I was surfing the web and looking for books that were similar to The Girl Who Owned a City. I stumbled across a web site that pointed me to this book and I instantly went out and bought it.

You know aside from the fact that this book is about a world populated by kids and that sides are drawn and chosen, that’s really all that you can compare to The Girl Who Owned a City.

Imagine being 14 and sitting in class, you’re bored, nothing new and suddenly your teacher vanishes, right before your eyes. And not just your teacher, but several students as well. No one really knows what is happening so eventually you wander into the hallway. Other students are peeking out of the rooms, confused by the fact that their teachers and apparently, anyone over 15 is gone too.

That’s how Gone begins. It’s another difference. Other books where the world is populated by kids begin by putting you in the situation already. I appreciated how Gone began with you seeing what happens and how characters react to experiencing the adults disappear.

This event causes mass chaos. You can imagine, if an adult was lighting up a cigarette or something and they disappeared, something could catch on fire, and something does. Sam Temple, a young man who saved a bus full of children a few years back when the driver had a heart attack, begins to investigate and in the process attempts to save a little girl from a burning building. During the fight, the little girl suddenly shoots flames from her arms and in turn Sam reacts with a power of his own somewhat involuntarily. Green light shoots out of his hands and in the confusion, the little girl dies in the process.

Sam is probably the main character of the book, or one of the main characters. He, together with his friends Quinn and Edilio start trying to figure out what is going on in their little town of Perdido Beach, California. (Perdido means Lost for all you non-Spanish speakers out there.) Soon, a “nerd” girl named Astrid begins to help them despite the fact that she is more concerned with caring for her autistic little brother who everyone calls Little Pete. The three boys decide to help her find him considering he was most likely with her father at the towns nuclear power plant when the incident occured.

When they return to town they discover that some kids have begun calling Perdido Beach: The FAYZ. Fallout Alley Youth Zone. Some have discovered just how far out their problem goes and others are forming gangs and stealing. A select few have decided to set up a daycare for the babies and toddlers.

Enter Caine Sorren and a select group of students from the expensive private academy on the hill and things begin to get rough. Caine is manipulative and charming and has a plan of his own.

The book overall is exciting and fun and a terrific read. At 558 pages, it really only feels like 200. I read it so fast. Not to mention, when I was done, I went out and bought the sequel right away. Each chapter begins with a clock counting down, and it’s effective. It kept pushing me, wondering what exactly it was counting down to, although I must admit, halfway through the book I guessed but I don’t think that’s the point. When you guess you want to know even more.

The book includes s o many great things. It’s been described as Stephen King re-writing Lord of the Flies with a little X-Men dashed in. It’s pretty accurate. In the FAYZ, animals begin mutating. Kids begin to get powers and as X-Men shows us, when some people have visible powers and others don’t, well…things never go very well.

I recommend this to everyone who like YA fiction, superhero stories and stories about societies rules  breaking down due to catastrophic events.

Gone is written by Michael Grant.

Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 1:48 pm.
Filed under: Book Review, Thoughts on Books.