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lexi_reads_books's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
cornmaven's review against another edition
5.0
This book is part sci-fi, part horror story, a la Stephen King. I normally do not like horror books, but the sci-fi part of it captured me. I thought the characters were stereotypical, but for middle schoolers and high schoolers, it's good thing to have so they can come to understand themes in literature. The story has classic elements of good vs evil, and the human draw toward evil that must be pushed back, especially in crisis situations. Plus, it contains the Cain and Abel story - with the Cain character even possessing the name Caine.
I don't know if I will read the next installment, Hunger, just because of time constraints. The story itself captivated me enough to want to read on. There's the Darkness, that still needs to be fleshed out, and the community of kids are going to starve if they don't do something soon.
I don't know if I will read the next installment, Hunger, just because of time constraints. The story itself captivated me enough to want to read on. There's the Darkness, that still needs to be fleshed out, and the community of kids are going to starve if they don't do something soon.
gallant_reviews's review against another edition
0.5
Just no… "blah" He said. "Blah" She said. He said. She said. Gosh…. The vocab in the books really speaks to the age it was written for. This was close to a DNF but I had a small hope towards the end… It disappointed. DNFing the rest of the series.
aabbii's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
alysses's review against another edition
2.0
I wish I had gone poof!
OK, maybe that was a bit dramatic. I don't REALLY wish I had gone poof like all of the adults in this town. However, the reality of it is that I didn't enjoy Gone as much as everyone else who has given this book awesome ratings and glowing reviews.
I finished Gone a long time ago and I wasn't sure if I wanted to review it or not. There are over 20,000 five star reviews on Goodreads alone and I didn't feel like my review would contribute to anything.
Yeah, but I cave and now I review.
One very normal day, everyone aged 15 and up disappear. They literally just blink out of existence, leaving everyone aged 14 and under to fend for themselves in this small town in California. This is where the book takes on a very Lord of the Flies on steroid approach seasoned with some Heroes (TV show) and garnished with some Stephen King.
To say this book had a lot going on is an understatement. I think perhaps it had too much going on but even then the theme wasn't that hard to follow. You did have to wait a long time for anything to happen because the pacing in this book was very slow. Because you are constantly being introduced to new characters you don't really get to know any of them, keep up with them or care about them too much. Sadly, I was OK with that. Yes, a world without adults could get very chaotic. It was scary to think there were that many kids who were power hungry and flat out psychotic. I wasn't totally immune to the horrible things that took place in Gone, it's just that I was intrigued by all the crazy sci-fi stuff being thrown in.
The two major issues I had with the book were:
1. Heavy, heavy, heavy Christianity.
2. The non stop derogatory terms being used by one character in regards to one of the major characters in the book.
Let me make something very clear. I'm not bashing religion. NOT AT ALL. I'm very spiritual and not very religious for very personal reasons. However, I find beauty in EVERY religion. I'm also not against religion being in fiction. In fact, one of my favorite books is By the River Piedra I Sat and Wept by Paulo Coelho and I plan to read all of his books. The religion in this book just felt out of place. I feel that I can't go into much detail without offending someone. Simply put I didn't think that teenagers and children like the kids in this book would speak about God in the way they did. The prayers and the talks about punishment by God included in the book felt more like the author's agenda than that of children who are supposed to represent the majority of children reading the book. The little bit of background given on the characters didn't allow me to even try to pretend that they spoke like this on a norm. Believe me, I went to Catholic grade school and high school. Kids don't talk like this.
With that said, it totally irritated me that there was one character that kept using derogatory terms when speaking to one of the other major characters. Clearly, a strong theme in the book was one of good vs evil. Yet the "good" guy kept using these words when speaking to his friend. I didn't understand why it was necessary to include this language. What purpose did it serve? If you've read the book and you know why, please enlighten me.
On a serious tip...These two points bothered me so much that I jumped online and searched reviews on Goodreads to see if anyone else had mentioned the things about this book that rubbed me the wrong way. Can you believe that not one person mentioned anything at all about these things? OK, I just found one that spoke on the derogatory comments.
I don't know. Maybe I'm too sensitive... Nope, I don't think that was it.
I am going to close by saying that there are some books you need to read yourself and I have found that there are others that I'm OK with someone just telling me about it. I'm good with being told about the rest of this series. I read this book with my son and although he felt the same way I did about pretty much everything I wrote in this review, he wants to continue reading the series to know how it all ends. He's on book 2. So far, he says that the book is pretty good.
On to the next...
OK, maybe that was a bit dramatic. I don't REALLY wish I had gone poof like all of the adults in this town. However, the reality of it is that I didn't enjoy Gone as much as everyone else who has given this book awesome ratings and glowing reviews.
I finished Gone a long time ago and I wasn't sure if I wanted to review it or not. There are over 20,000 five star reviews on Goodreads alone and I didn't feel like my review would contribute to anything.
Yeah, but I cave and now I review.
One very normal day, everyone aged 15 and up disappear. They literally just blink out of existence, leaving everyone aged 14 and under to fend for themselves in this small town in California. This is where the book takes on a very Lord of the Flies on steroid approach seasoned with some Heroes (TV show) and garnished with some Stephen King.
To say this book had a lot going on is an understatement. I think perhaps it had too much going on but even then the theme wasn't that hard to follow. You did have to wait a long time for anything to happen because the pacing in this book was very slow. Because you are constantly being introduced to new characters you don't really get to know any of them, keep up with them or care about them too much. Sadly, I was OK with that. Yes, a world without adults could get very chaotic. It was scary to think there were that many kids who were power hungry and flat out psychotic. I wasn't totally immune to the horrible things that took place in Gone, it's just that I was intrigued by all the crazy sci-fi stuff being thrown in.
The two major issues I had with the book were:
1. Heavy, heavy, heavy Christianity.
2. The non stop derogatory terms being used by one character in regards to one of the major characters in the book.
Let me make something very clear. I'm not bashing religion. NOT AT ALL. I'm very spiritual and not very religious for very personal reasons. However, I find beauty in EVERY religion. I'm also not against religion being in fiction. In fact, one of my favorite books is By the River Piedra I Sat and Wept by Paulo Coelho and I plan to read all of his books. The religion in this book just felt out of place. I feel that I can't go into much detail without offending someone. Simply put I didn't think that teenagers and children like the kids in this book would speak about God in the way they did. The prayers and the talks about punishment by God included in the book felt more like the author's agenda than that of children who are supposed to represent the majority of children reading the book. The little bit of background given on the characters didn't allow me to even try to pretend that they spoke like this on a norm. Believe me, I went to Catholic grade school and high school. Kids don't talk like this.
With that said, it totally irritated me that there was one character that kept using derogatory terms when speaking to one of the other major characters. Clearly, a strong theme in the book was one of good vs evil. Yet the "good" guy kept using these words when speaking to his friend. I didn't understand why it was necessary to include this language. What purpose did it serve? If you've read the book and you know why, please enlighten me.
On a serious tip...These two points bothered me so much that I jumped online and searched reviews on Goodreads to see if anyone else had mentioned the things about this book that rubbed me the wrong way. Can you believe that not one person mentioned anything at all about these things? OK, I just found one that spoke on the derogatory comments.
I don't know. Maybe I'm too sensitive... Nope, I don't think that was it.
I am going to close by saying that there are some books you need to read yourself and I have found that there are others that I'm OK with someone just telling me about it. I'm good with being told about the rest of this series. I read this book with my son and although he felt the same way I did about pretty much everything I wrote in this review, he wants to continue reading the series to know how it all ends. He's on book 2. So far, he says that the book is pretty good.
On to the next...
namstaru's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.5
jlink93's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Really enjoyed. Great world building and slow burn of characters coming into their powers. Brutal and sadly realistic in places. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
kingabee's review against another edition
4.0
I’m not going to say this wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t as much fun as I hoped it would be.
The set-up is interesting – everybody over fourteen disappears and the whole town and its surrounding area is now under a see-through but an impenetrable dome.
This does sound like a bunch of things we have heard before (to mention Stephen King’s Under the Dome at least) but, of course, it gets weirder and weirder. There are strange superpowers some of the kids acquire, talking coyotes, The Darkness, etc etc. And honestly at some point it starts to feel like the third season of Lost when you start wondering if anyone actually thought any of it through, or they are going to just keep piling up random crazy shit and hope for the best.
Maybe I want my YA dystopia a little more conventional. Just give me some environmental disaster together with some authoritarian regime or something like that.
Additionally, this very much felt like a ‘boys’ book’, in a way that the girls mostly assumed the caring, nourishing and supportive roles, while boys played at war. When the leaders were being elected at no point were any of the girls being considered. Of course, this isn’t the 1950s, so there were some interesting female characters, most notably Lana, whose solo journey full of adventures was the highlight of the book for me, but in general the gender division was strong.
Additionally, even though I don’t rate humanity much either, I still don’t think the kids left to their own devices would start killing each other within five days. (UPDATE: I have now seen people fighting over toilet paper in the first week of the pandemic. I retract my previous statement.)
I’m probably not going to be checking out the rest of the series unless I find myself isolated under some dome and most other books have disappeared, and it’s either Henry James’s more impenetrable works or the rest of this series. (UPDATE: find myself isolated... Kinga, seriously, shut the fuck up)
The set-up is interesting – everybody over fourteen disappears and the whole town and its surrounding area is now under a see-through but an impenetrable dome.
This does sound like a bunch of things we have heard before (to mention Stephen King’s Under the Dome at least) but, of course, it gets weirder and weirder. There are strange superpowers some of the kids acquire, talking coyotes, The Darkness, etc etc. And honestly at some point it starts to feel like the third season of Lost when you start wondering if anyone actually thought any of it through, or they are going to just keep piling up random crazy shit and hope for the best.
Maybe I want my YA dystopia a little more conventional. Just give me some environmental disaster together with some authoritarian regime or something like that.
Additionally, this very much felt like a ‘boys’ book’, in a way that the girls mostly assumed the caring, nourishing and supportive roles, while boys played at war. When the leaders were being elected at no point were any of the girls being considered. Of course, this isn’t the 1950s, so there were some interesting female characters, most notably Lana, whose solo journey full of adventures was the highlight of the book for me, but in general the gender division was strong.
Additionally, even though I don’t rate humanity much either, I still don’t think the kids left to their own devices would start killing each other within five days. (UPDATE: I have now seen people fighting over toilet paper in the first week of the pandemic. I retract my previous statement.)
I’m probably not going to be checking out the rest of the series unless I find myself isolated under some dome and most other books have disappeared, and it’s either Henry James’s more impenetrable works or the rest of this series. (UPDATE: find myself isolated... Kinga, seriously, shut the fuck up)
samsal_'s review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75