Review: Gone by Michael Grant

Gone by Michael Grant

My rating: 4 of 5 teacups


This was a very good book about adventure, mutants, superheroes and just the plain old story of surviving high school... only this time there are no adults to keep a check on things.


This novel tells the story of how one day in a small Californian town everyone 15 and over mysteriously disappears. But that's not all. The town becomes surrounded by a strange spherical barrier, no one gets in or out. And stranger still, the children and teenagers left behind are discovering that some of them have weird mutant powers. And that snakes can fly. And coyotes can talk. In a world gone mad, power and leadership are up for the picking. In a world run by children, power belongs to the bullies, the sadists, or the mutants.


So, I'm going to explain the reason it got four instead of five stars. Well, I've spent the last few weeks reading books that are instantly gripping, they throw you right into the middle of the story and build up their characters around it... this book, however, takes time at the beginning to introduce and explore each character in a way that I feel would have been much more effective if it had been integrated throughout the novel. But it's not just that. I have some issues with the female characters.


As a woman and a feminist, I love strong females in books. But the strongest female in this book was probably Diana, the psychopath, and even she was most notably only the girlfriend of the opposition. The girls in this book are all "beautiful" or "cute" and are important only as ornaments on the arm of the leaders - all of which are male, there never seemed to be any discussion in this book as to whether the chosen leader would be female. Also, I grew increasingly annoyed by the way Sam was built up as Astrid's saviour and hero. I had higher hopes for Astrid at first, she was described as a genius and I thought she could be a great contribution to solving their predicament, but she was actually fairly useless, often needing to be rescued herself. My favourite female of the book is Lana. She survived alone in the desert without ever needing a guy's help (unless you count her lovable dog, Patrick) and she braved a truck crash, coyote attacks and more. I hope there's more strength and admirable qualities coming from her character in the second installment. Which, by the way, I am extremely looking forward to because the story is VERY good even if my rant seemed to suggest otherwise.