Gone by Michael Grant

In the blink of an eye. Everyone disappears. GONE.

Except for the young. Teens. Middle schoolers. Toddlers. But not one single adult. No teachers, no cops, no doctors, no parents. 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...

This was another very difficult book for me. I’m not really good with books that seem to have a bleak ending where things can only get worse. This book totally starts out like that. There are children killing children with bats and guns, babies starving and dying, and a lack of resources and the knowledgeable people required to make more that doesn’t look good for the kids stuck in the FAYZ. I felt somewhat for Sam, and more for Astrid, but I don’t think I could let myself feel totally connected to them because I was afraid for them. The addition of a school full of psychotic teenagers was overkill in my opinion. I think enough of the trapped children would do horrible things after they lose authority and the people who love them that the Coates kids appeared as a contrivance to have an easy villain that Orc couldn’t be. I did like the initial results of the *poof*. The addition of a nuclear reactor was strange, it didn’t play much into the plot other than as a location just like any other. On one hand I like that (because the science behind the reactor not going nuclear as soon as there are no people to watch it is sound, at least for the short time), but I’m not sure I’m going to like having it around in the future as it decays and causes problems. The creation of the FAYZ is explained late in the book, and I’m not sure I am convinced with how it happened or what happens when people *poof*, and the explanation of how to avoid *poof* is very confusing to me, as is the closet light and the darkness force. I guess some of these things had to be left for the future books, but I’m not sure I believe that the society will go on far enough tobe worth 3 more books. I guess I will have to try the next one to find out, but I do it with trepidation.