Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Gone by Michael Grant

12 reviews

slatattack's review against another edition

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  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

The plot of this book makes little sense and falls apart in order to write more books. The blinking out lord doesn’t work and just seems to be written in in order to keep Sam and Caine in the FAYZ. 

The explicit depictions of bulimia are unnecessary and not really plot relevant. As too is the ableism and racism. Little Pete didn’t have to be autistic there is no plot reason for it at all and it is written very poorly and very stereotypically and is a very ableist and infantilising portrayal. It seems as though some characters were written as ableist and racist so the author could get away with saying slurs/racist comments. And Astrids response to Pete being called the r-slur is disgusting and ableist as hell against high support needs autistics. 

I finished the book but only because I hate DNFing. The storyline was clunky and had many plot holes and the writing was poor. 

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arielcg's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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123urmom's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0


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loz1327's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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villainessreads's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

My biggest gripe is how the characters of Edilio and Pete were handled. Quinn is openly and blatantly racist against Edilio and he's not really punished for it. He's still a "good guy" at the end. There's no narrative pushback for calling Edilio a slur like there is for Pete's slurs. I kept reading, but it never stopped being uncomfortable. I don't know how the author is normally a great ally and failed to see how horrible it would be for a PoC to read how Edilio was treated by the narrative. He's practically their housekeeper: cleans up their mess but never gets any narrative credit for his contributions. 

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rakktels's review against another edition

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adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0


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0pen_b00ks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5


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thesawyerbean's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A very interesting and terrifying YA dystopia - I am very excited to read the next instalment.

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highcrisis's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

michael grant and k a applegate of animorphs fame on their first date
katherine applegate: i wonder if we have anything in common? for example, I love writing novels that contain extreme body horror and disturbing settings-
michael grant: omg for 12 year olds?
katherine applegate: omg yes for 12 year olds

content warnings: body horror, dead babies, bulimia, nuclear(?) mutations, gore, animal horror(?), opioid addiction, alcoholism, amputation, mass child graves, car crash

honestly the fact that I went from reading a grimdark adult fantasy to this and the tone barely changed at ALL??

fucked harder than when I read it as a kid. this book really shows you that you don't need to dumb writing down for kids, this shit was hard, the character motivations were great (like, these 14 year olds kids were complex!!), the mystery, the fantasy mystery, the gross body horror!! jeff vandermeer was taking NOTES when he wrote annihilation!

this book is better than most YA and middle grade fiction right now to be quick fucking honest! and also reinforces my opinion that kids books in the 2000s were better because there was no weird american puritanical bullshit insisting they had to insert ~moral learnings~ into the novel every few chapters. like, michael grant wrote a charming, manipulative asshole as the villain in this novel, and it fucking lands!

4.5 rounded up (4 bc it was a bit dicey towards the end, 5 bc it fucking slaps)

anyways book 2 lets go

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delphic's review against another edition

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too unnecessarily graphic, was interested in the main idea for the book but found the
the burnt body of a toddler, a girl lying on the road as her limbs turn gangrenous, the mention of babies dying and the description of binge eating
all a bit too much especially so early on and close together

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