October 25, 2013
With Big Mistakes, Comes Big Consequences
By Nadine Allen
GONE
By Michael Grant
576 pp. Katherine Tegan Books/
HarperTeen Publishers.
(Young Adult; age 14 and up)
Imagine you’re in history class and the teacher is droning on and on and all of a sudden he isn’t. He isn’t even in the room. You ask the baffled kid to your right what was happening, only you get two words that clashed reality and impossibility together. Two words that question everything you know: He disappeared.
In GONE, Michael Grants first book in the GONE series, this is the hard truth that kids have to accept, whether they want to or not. Through the rising hysteria, kids like Sam have to step up, and be an adult figure to try to stop the rising panic.
Sam is quickly looked up to in the new community and quickly, he realizes they are not only fighting whatever caused their new predicament, but they are also fighting each other. Some of the kids are starting to develop powers and bullies realize they can have power. In Caine, Michael Grant shows us how bullies are taking a stand in the weak town, to their advantage.
Written in many character’s point of views, kids are forced to face hard challenges that question and uncover new founded suspicions towards each other. Also, a sinister creature lurks where it waits for something it needs.
We as readers are forced to ask, will the kids of Perdido Beach build up their courage and manage through their troubles, or will terror overtake them and lead to chaos? GONE is a book with an amazing heart that allows us to realize that some decisions have to be made that won’t always not hurt someone you care about.
Michael Grant tells us a compelling story of trust and fear, but the story seems to sidetrack into too much explanation sometimes. In 576 pages, the author was able to get through all the emotional context as well as the action, but instead, the book seemed to slow down in it’s fast moving pace a few times. This lead to the reader’s attention to grow wary.
In this book, it is the truth in it that stands out the most. Michael Grant sews in hard conflicts that happen everyday in the world, which happen to help readers digest what was happening in the fantasy parts.
“We didn’t make this world, we’re just the poor fools who are living in it.” Sam says one time in the book, and with it he and everyone tries to understand that they have to conform to their new life, even though they will have to go through tough and burdensome times.
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