Review: Gone

One second they're there, the next they're gone.  Poof.  Everybody over fourteen suddenly vanished from the town of Perdido Beach, California.  The kids are trapped in their city, alone and scared.  Bullies rule and chaos spreads.  And things are changing; kids are changing.  They're developing superpowers.  Animals are changing too.  And a mysterious, dark force seems to be orchestrating it all...

Sam didn't want to be a hero, but when all the kids turn to him he has no choice.  With Astrid, he has to fight the Darkness, his own powers, the tyrannical Caine, and possibly himself.  And the clock is ticking, because when he turns fifteen he'll vanish too...

Entertainment: ★★★★★

First of all, I think this book gave me nightmares.  I had freaky dreams involving it.  It was that exciting.  I could not put it down.
 
Plot: ★★
 
Bonus points for being exciting, but it loses a lot of points on the basis of being simply confusing.  Even after finishing the book I'm extremely confused on many points and still don't understand some parts of the story.  Plus, the whole plot just seems a little haphazard, like the author kept saying, "I wonder what would happen if I added this completely random and weird element into the story!"
 
Charcters: ★★★


Astrid bugged me, I'll say that right off the bat.  And Sam started off cool, but turned disappointingly wimpy.  The protagonists, overall, weren't too impressive.  Caine and Diana, on the other hand, were awesome.  They were really freakin' amazing antagonists.  Really freakin' amazing.
 
Writing: ★★★


Grant's got a nice, entertaining writing style, but it just seems a little juvenile sometimes.  I can't explain it, really, but it just seemed like writing targeted for a younger/more immature audience.  Also, I mentioned above the (annoying) habit of throwing totally random elements into the story for no apparent reason, and the lack of explanation for a lot of what happened.  Still, it was an enjoyable story.
 
End Result: three stars.  A decent book, but not amazingly excellent.