Michael Grant's six-part Young Adult series follows a beach-side community that find themselves in an impossible situation. Everyone aged fifteen and over simply disappear. No spectacular disappearance, no poof. Just gone. Perdido Beach and the surrounding area is now a strange town stuck in a large sphere where only the young roam, looking for food, looking for attention and looking for answers. The six novels follow the array of problems these children eventually face. The initial disruption; the hunger that eventually follows their limited supply of food; conflict and political strife that falls upon the children; illness and plagues; and eventually what happens when the barrier comes down. And if there weren't enough problems, their community is evolving in a rapid way. Animals and nature are changing. Humans are developing paranormal abilities. Nothing is the same. In particular, Grant explores the dynamics between and within these youths on the cusp of adolescence as they try to make sense of a world without adults, and more importantly, without rules.
I picked up the first book on a whim. I saw these books around my local library for ages, with the first instalment having been published in 2008 and I recently heard a bit of a buzz around them so I finally decided to give this series a go. I am so glad that I did. Grant has entertained me, moved me and captivated me throughout the journey that is this series and there was such a large spectrum of wonderful elements to delve into.
Undoubtedly, one of the biggest strengths of this series, and Michael Grant's writing in general is the characters. He yields very complex and very human characters that are all different which allows the reader to achieve a rewarding scope of perspectives and life lessons. Each and every one of these characters in the Gone series have distinct identities, and whether they are likeable or not, they are all engaging. When Grant swaps between the story lines of these characters, I rarely feel bored or cheated when they change as each one is as interesting as the others. Another very notable strength to Grant's characters is that each one is clearly flawed. Often in literature, the protagonist is flawless and a shining example of idealism, or if not, their best friend is by default. Not in Gone, firstly because there is arguably no main character. Instead, Grant employs a large group of many stories that all interweave equally, comparable to J.J. Abram's Lost. Like Lost, the series has its own Jack named Sam, who has a leadership thrust upon him without choice, allowing the first of many examples of power to be experimented with. Sam even has the "evil" doppelganger to his goodness in his counterpart Caine, although Grant never keeps the lines this structured. Instead, every trait is blurred and constantly changing. There is no defined examples of 'good' and 'bad' within the characters as the setting of the series forces the characters to the limits of their moralities - one of the most important overall themes of the series.
"Everything he had done, it wasn't courage: it was all just a desperate effort to stay alive, wasn't it? In the end wasn't that all it was?" (Light)
Grant also has to be commended for including such a diverse set of characters in the Gone series. Although they are initially limited to children aged 0 - 15, Grant stretches these limits to full capacity by creating a collection of powerful females and well as males and a vast representation of many races and sexualities. Additionally, later on in the series when Grant addresses the world outside of the adultless sphere (known as the FAYZ), he is able to write adults as complexly and deeply as the children. There is no discrimination in his writing and everything is equally meaningful and significant. The author has definitely succeeded on many platforms to create a story that reflects the lives of people in full accuracy and maintaining a consistent fluidity throughout. By the end of the series, I was so invested in these characters that I was genuinely afraid to finish reading as this meant leaving this family behind. Grant definitely created his own world housed within those pages and putting the book down felt like saying goodbye to good friends. If you are yet to read this series, be ready to create attachments and have them subsequently destroyed in Grant's brutal deaths. Believe me when I say that he isn't afraid of killing off some of the most important characters for the benefit of action, character development and plot.
Connected to this, I really liked the heterodiagetic narrative style that swaps focalisation between each main character as well as the secondary and tertiary characters to allow a really wide view of the entire plot and situation. Having an opportunity for every character to voice and share their thoughts really strengthened the connection between the reader and the characters. It also improved the complexity of the characters yet again as each one felt more dynamic rather than being flat, two-dimensional space fillers. Overall, it was a very clever way of writing that allowed such a large group of characters to be equally heard.
The Gone series is comprised of six full length novels, over three thousand pages of content, and yet it was very rare of me to lose interest. Each book in the series had its own distinct focus which always helped propel the action forward. Although I felt that Lies (the third book) was the weakest because of its lack of a direct theme, the following books stepped up and the momentum did not wan. My favourites in the series on account of plot would have to be Hunger and Plague as these were inevitable problems that would happen in an apocalyptic environment and Grant managed to keep them exciting without following clichés or being predictable. I particularly liked the handling of the last book. In itself, it acted almost like an epilogue, tying off loose ends very nicely with my favourite section being the "Aftermath" chapters at the end. It was very satisfying as effects are nearly always as important as causes in the same way that the aftermath is as interesting as the action.
Furthermore, I fully appreciate the fact that Grant never shied away from violence during this series. As imagined in any situation without civilisation and adults, children left to their own devices would lead to chaos. In a true Lord of the Flies fashion, Grant kept in the gory, animalistic details without sugar-coating anything for younger readers. This could be seen as a criticism as the target audience of these books are approximately 12+, but I believe that it makes everything that much more realistic.
The novel does deal with some very weird and seemingly impossible ideas such as talking coyotes, a boy with a tentacle for an arm, and a controlling green mass that lives inside a cave. However, Grant's technique of explanation and pace allows everything to be plausible within the world of the FAYZ. The plot escalated in a very believable and natural way considering the extreme circumstances. As the books got increasingly darker, I found myself getting more and more involved with morbid curiosity. I just couldn't look away by the end.
I did find it a hard at times to imagine the ages of the children. With the oldest of them still being fifteen at the end of the series, I still couldn't imagine teenagers that age having the maturity levels of the characters in the book. I would have preferred the age brackets to be slightly higher, but that may be due to me being an older reader. I tend to visualise myself within the characters' situations when I read and therefore if they are younger than me, I often find it hard to remember what my mentality was at that age. This is a small discrepancy though as the microcosm of the FAYZ becomes its own community irrespective of age.
"But if all they did was kill time, time would end up killing them." (Gone)
Another facet of these books that I really liked were the way the powers were portrayed. Many of the powers that were included in this series were tried and tested abilities such as super strength and telekinesis. However, Grant was able to use these pre-conceived templates to create real interest in the moral and political repercussions of having superhuman abilities. He toyed with ideas of hierachy and power as well as discrimination between those with powers and those without, creating the story line with Zil's group and the conflict between "moofs" and "normals", using the powers as a plot device to create separation and a divide. Moreover, it was even more interesting to see how the two groups interacted and helped one another by the end. Characters such as Edilio, Astrid and Quinn became as important as those with the paranormal abilities. It really placed emphasis on who we are rather than what we have.
This series is truly illuminating. It involves many important and controversial themes such as religion, sexuality, love, family, age, money, power and death. Michael Grant really explored every inch of the human condition in this stellar series. Highly recommend whatever age you are.
(p.s. (spoiler) I couldn't have been happier that Lana and Patrick were still together by the end. Patrick is the biggest survivor.)
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