Released: June 24th, 2008
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books 
# of Pages: 560, Hardcover
Source: Borrowed from Library
Summary: In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears. Gone. Except for the young. There are teens, but not one single adult. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what’s happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating.

And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents—unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers—that grow stronger by the day. It’s a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen, a fight is shaping up. Townies against rich kids. Bullies against the weak. Powerful against powerless. And time is running out: On your birthday, you disappear just like everyone else…

First of all, I never imagined that I would like this story as much as I actually did. I never actually planned on picking it up from my school’s library, but after taking a quiz in the library for my Latin class my teacher told us we couldn’t get books out of our bags to read, instead we had to check one out from the library. (She made this new rule that we couldn’t touch any of our stuff during testing times because some students were caught cheating, ugh.

So now I can’t read my own book afterwards and I have to start a new one. :/) I was looking for something that I thought was quick and easy so I picked up this book, and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Now, on to my review..

The writing style of this book was not too bad. It could have been better, maybe a little more sentence variety, but it didn’t bother me too much. The plotline was overall pretty good. I think the pacing of all the events was decent because I was never bored of reading this book, however, some people believe there was too much happening in such little time. It just depends on the individual reading the book.

What I didn’t like about the plot was I felt like there were too many twists involved in the story. The main premise of the story (everyone over the age of 15 suddenly disappearing), would have been enough for a story, but I don’t think some of the additions were necessary. (Talking/mutated animals, really?) I loved the main concept of the story, but I feel like there was too much added in.

The characters, in my opinion, weren’t portrayed the way they should have been. The kids seemed to be acting much older than they were; the oldest are only 14 year olds, yet they acted like young adults. I understand if they acted a little older because they had to step up and become more responsible so they could survive on their own, but they did not act like the kids they really are. (This may have not been an issue to others, but it affected my opinion of the story. I kept forgetting they were just kids because of how they were acting.)

That was not the only thing that bothered me about these characters. While reading I noticed that they were either really good kids or really bad kids. The kids were either the “good guy” or the villain; there was no in-between. They should have been more diverse. I couldn’t connect with the characters at all. There was always just a few traits given to the characters. There weren’t any in-depth descriptions of them, so it was really hard to relate to them and they didn’t feel very realistic.

Even though there were several things in the story I did not like, I still really enjoyed reading this book. Overall it was very action-packed and thought-provoking! While reading it kept me thinking a lot about what would happen if this happened in real life. I love when a book really makes me think. This book is very enjoyable, and I definitely recommend it.

You can find Gone here.

 

 

Guest review contributed by Lovely Little Reviews xo. This blogger writes the best reviews possible to help authors get their work in front of readers.