Gone is the first book in a six book series written by Michael Grant. Now I won’t condemn you for not knowing who that person is; I, myself, didn’t know who he was until I started reading these books. He’s an alright known author who writes pretty good and is married to Katherine Applegate. Now I will condemn you if you don’t know who she is. Okay, maybe I won’t but still. She wrote the hit children’s book series called Animorphs, which I may or may not have the entire collection of at home.
The book Gone is about this group of kids who are going through life and then bam, everyone above the age of 15 disappears and some of the children have mutant powers and there’s one evil kid who just shouldn’t be living and rahhhhhhhhhhh.
Now, I bought the books because I had seen them at Waterstones and they looked pretty good and, despite the fact that I am about to turn 19, I like reading stuff like this. So I went and bought them and they are actually really good. The premise is pretty good, the characters are pretty good, the writing is pretty good.
But you can immediately tell that this is a book written for children and that’s what gets me about this. It’s like when you read the first Harry Potter book; you know that J. K. Rowling can write better than that. You know she can. But she chooses not to because she’s testing the waters and seeing if older people will enjoy her work as much as younger people. And then you read the last Harry Potter book and the difference in writing is pretty incredible because she goes from children’s writer to adult writer and it’s just amazing how she does it.
And this book does the same. It’s testing the waters and the writing is very childlike and you can immediately tell. However, I have since read the second and third books and will be starting the fourth in a few hours and I can tell you that the writing does indeed pick up after the initial book. So there’s that.
3.5/5
Kasim Kaey,
