Title: Gone
Author: Michael Grant
Series: Gone (#1)
Rating: 5/5 Winged Snakes
Spoilers: None!

Synopsis:
In the blink of an eye. Everyone disappears. GONE.
Except for the young. Teens. Middle schoolers. Toddlers. But not one single adult. No teachers, no cops, no doctors, no parents. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what’s happened.
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, a fight is shaping up. Townies against rich kids. Bullies against the weak. Powerful against powerless. And time is running out: On your birthday, you disappear just like everyone else…

Review: I fell in love this week… with this book. For me, Gone was pretty much perfect, beginning to end. I’ve read, and loved books with a similar premise in the past (books where for whatever reason all the adults disappear or were killed, leaving the children to fend for themselves) and this is easily the best of the bunch. To be fair, this book is definitely a combination of some concepts we’ve seen before (think Lord of the Flies, plus X-Men, plus the Stand, plus a few other things) but they’re combined beautifully and I really can’t complain or criticize here. Sometimes it isn’t about coming up with a brand new idea, it’s about putting your own spin on something that’s been done already.

It was also the most intense, to the point of sometimes being a little disturbing. It had me on the edge of my seat. I wont go into details but some of the things that these kids do to each other are pretty horrifying and Michael Grant doesn’t squirm away from the unpleasant details. You really feel for these children who start out mostly freaked out and missing their parents but quickly learn what it’s going to take to survive.

The characters are diverse and well fleshed out. Some of them start out seeming somewhat stereotypical but you learn their quirks etc as you go. Everyone had a different motivation for what they were doing (helping their brother, taking care of the children too young to care for themselves or even just surviving some crazy talking coyotes) and so you felt like you really knew these people pretty early on. One other thing I loved was that these kids really were making decisions as if they were children, not just little adults, living off of candy and pop etc.

It’s a big book, but still a quick read so I definitely recommend picking this one up. It really gets you thinking about what you would do to survive, what your roll would be. I’m definitely glad I got into this series late because it means there are three more books just waiting for me at work, but I’ll still get the thrill of waiting for the final two in this series to come out.