Gone

By Michael Grant

Gone is touted as a modern-day Lord of the Flies. It's not that good. By that I mean, you won't be weighed down with any heavy ethical issues. No guilt for Piggy.

But it is good fun. And like all teenaged fun, it's best not to have the adults around.

San Perdido, California. One minute - normal life. The next? All individuals over the age of 15 have disappeared. There one second, gone the next.

Sam Templeton, a quiet 14 year old boy, becomes the leader who helps band the local kids together - fighting the bullies and also the rich, private school students who come down from their mountain to try to gain control of the town. The young children must be cared for, fights resolved, and a community must be governed.

In all honesty, there's enough to that story line to develop an engaging read.

But Grant gives us more. Along with the disappearance of adults comes the children's development of super powers. And the impenetrable domed barrier that prevents anyone from leaving the area. Oh, and did I forget to mention the mutating animals?

Throughout all the trials, the characters and the reader struggle to determine how? and why?

Honestly, that's a lot of ingredients for one story. And a lot of authors (especially if they were a seventh grader) would lose control of everything. But Grant does a good job tying it all together, juggling it all to help create a compelling mystery that drives the reader forward. I imagine that the reader's hunger to know the mystery is comparable to the series Lost (which I have never watched), Defying Gravity (awesome sci-fi series that was cancelled), or Battlestar Galactica (Best. Series. Ever.).

Of course, all this action and mystery has to take a toll on some aspect of the novel and it does: character development is rather shallow. But you'll forgive the book for this because you don't care so much for the characters as for the strange events, the mutations, the super powers, the fights, and the mystery. The fast pacing of the story line won't give you a moment to reflect on the weaknesses of the book anyway.

If you liked Hunger Games, super power stories, action-packed books, The Girl Who Owned a City, I Am Number Four, you will like Gone.

Grade: B+