Series Review: Gone by Michael Grant
Genre: Horror, Sci-fi, Dystopia
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Pages: Approx. 500 pages each book
Amazon Link*: Click here
Goodreads Page: Click here
Summary:
Without warning, everyone over the age of 15 years old disappears. In the following series of events, the remaining teens and children discover that some of them have supernatural powers. Terrible things happen to them.Review: Yup. I'm reviewing a whole series. Why? Because I feel the need to warn you all.
(Summary by me. Tried to keep it not-spoilery)
Gone saved me one Christmas break. I absolutely could not find anything I wanted to read, and so I went to the closest bookstore and bought the biggest book in the YA section. I loved it. You can read that review here. I also really loved the second book. Mini review of that here.
But then... as I read on in the series... things started getting progressively more disturbing. But there was never any profanity or sexual scenes (which are my no-nos) so I kept going. You can see my feelings evolving in my reviews of the third and fourth books.
But then things got REALLY disturbing. But at this point I had already devoted over 2,000 pages to these books. So I wasn't going to stop. The last review I posted for book 5 is here.
And now here I am. I've officially FINISHED this series. And here are my final thoughts:
This series grabs you and doesn't let you go. However, sometimes it felt like I had already stepped into the Tower of Terror elevator; and by the time I realized what was happening, it was too late to get off. And I mean the REAL ToT elevator. Not the Disney ride. This series took me places I didn't want to go, but because I felt so invested in the characters I went there anyway. Do I regret reading it? Um... I'm going to hesitantly say no. Because I really did love the first two. And I am a self-proclaimed lover of horror books. But... I don't know. The things that happened to these kids, both what they did to each other and what was done too them, hit me in a place beyond fiction.
GAH! This is a hard review to write. Can you tell? Never before have I read books that I LIKED/loved, but that I wouldn't recommend to anyone. As it is, this is not a series I recommend to people. It's not even a series that I don't recommend lightly. I don't recommend it at all because I don't want to be blamed for people getting trapped in it.
Any of you read this series? Can you add more coherence to my review?
All review content © Enna Isilee, Squeaky Books 2007-2013
I love this series! I'm sorry you felt that way. I haven't read the final one yet, but I've got it on my TBR shelf. I recommend this series to a lot of my students. And now I'm recommending it to kids who like the new tv show based on Stephen King's Under the Dome. I do agree that the first 2 were probably the best though. And I don't know about how it ends yet, so we'll see! Great, honest review though!
ReplyDeleteI remember really liking the beginning of this series, but I never got past the third or fourth book. I didn't stop for any real reason, I just never felt the urge to pick up the next book.
ReplyDeleteI read the first two, but I don't think I finished the second. I can't remember why who, I think I just wasn't that interested in the plot.
ReplyDeleteThis series is fabulous! It robbed me of my innocence in middle school and I cannot be more thankful. (Yeah, I'm a little weird). Growing up as the oldest child in a Midwestern family with the sweetest most innocent parents of all time, I have always felt overly sheltered. Ever since I was a little girl I had searched for something a little darker than "Jenny and Johnny go to the beach." Also, I love how there are great themes about diversity, perseverance, and all the crap teenagers do. It's not perfect, (there's a lot of plot holes) but it's still totally amazing. Most importantly, it's not about a girl who falls madly in love and her hunky male love interest. It's about characters that are both good and bad, who aren't the perfect teenage heroes most books portray. (They actually act 15, shocker!)
ReplyDelete