GONE, HUNGER by Michael Grant

The GONE series by Michael Grant is a science fiction series that is impossible to put down. These are 400-500 almost 600 page books, so know that it’s going to be good. Since this series is 4 books and are long books I will break this series up into two blogs, so it won’t be so long for you to read it.

The first book in this series is GONE. The main character is Sam Temple, a 14 year old. You may be wondering why I told you Sam’s age. Well in this series age is almost as important as food and water. If you are confused I will explain what had happened in the small town of Perdido Beach.

Sam isn’t exactly a normal kid. He has an unbelievable power. He can have light come out of his hands, but that very light can melt and kill almost anything. This power can come in handy because everyone 15 and older disappeared. They were gone. No one knows what had happened; all that they know is that the oldest people are 14 year old kids and that a big dome is trapping them inside and trapping everyone else out. They all turn to school bus Sam (a name that he had gotten when a bus driver had a heart attack and he a first grader was the one who pulled the bus over) for help. Little does everyone know Sam isn’t the one with the most power in the FAYZ (Fallout Alley Youth Zone), but rather an autistic little kid named Pete (Little Pete). Little Pete is Astrid’s (Sam’s crush/girlfriend) younger brother. Since Pete is autistic he doesn’t actually know what is going on, or that he created the FAYZ, with the help of what people call the Darkness. Only two people know about Pete’s powers; those two people are Astrid (of course) and surprisingly Sam. The Coates Academy has actually taken over Perdido Beach, with Sam’s twin brother (Caine, who has the power to move things with his mind) in charge. Caine is not the best person for the job, because he wants to be treated like a king. Will he get full control over Perdido Beach, or will the kids with developing powers like Sam and Caine be able to over throw him?

The second book in this series is Hunger. In this book everyone is starving, especially the darkness. T he darkness hungers for something totally different then what everybody else considers food. The darkness hungers for what runs the light and electricity in Perdido Beach. The darkness hungers for uranium. That’s right I said uranium the radioactive kind of stuff. While the food dwindles down in town and at Coates, the wars still wage. Now that Perdido Beach kicked Caine out of power and sent him back to Coates a war has begun between the two places. Now that if you don’t have a power you might just die, or the other way around. With the Human Crew (HC) out in the streets of Perdido Beach anything could happen. As I already said everyone in Perdido Beach is hungry, hungry doesn’t even describe what the kids in the FAYZ are feeling. The word ravenous describes what the kids are feeling now. For food Caine decides to take over the Power Plant the runs Perdido Beach’s power in exchange for food. Only the food isn’t for him it is for the darkness. Besides Sam and Caine another important character is Lana, otherwise known as the Healer. Lana has met the Darkness. Lana is what the Darkness wants to make it human. Lana always has the Darkness in her mind, and is always hearing the words that it had spoken to her. Well in this book Lana makes her mind up that she will kill the Darkness. Lana believes that she will try to blow it up and almost succeeds in doing so, but she got so close to doing so… then the Darkness had pulled her into the cave. Then it possesses her and she has no control over her body or actions. What will she do like this?

In my next blog I will tell you about the third and fourth books in the GONE series.

Heist Society by Ally Carter

                The Heist Society series by Ally Carter is an action packed series. At first I didn’t want to read this series, but I got it as a gift so read the first book. I am so glad that I had gotten them because they are mind-blowing books.

                The first book is called Heist Society. The main character’s name is Katrina Bishop or Kat as her friends call her. I guess that you could say that Kat’s family has a shady history. Yours would be too if you belonged to a family of thieves.  At first she tries to leave her old life behind and start a new life at the Colgan School. She does a fairly good job of leaving her old life behind, but when family needs help will she accept the job. A private collection has been stolen, by someone who uses the name Visily Romani. That isn’t his real name but actually a Chelovek Pseudonima. This means scared names. Kat’s dad was one of the only people who could have pulled off this job.  The owner of the private collection even has a list of people that could have done it. That list has only one name and that is Bobby Bishop, Kat’s dad. To clear her dads name Kat has to leave her boarding school life, which is easy since W.W. Hale the Fifth (Hale) has gotten her expelled. The owner of the private collection is Arturo Taccone who isn’t a bad person like Kat and her family, but an entirely different type of bad. He is even threatening to kill Kat’s dad if he doesn’t return the paintings. Taccone isn’t what you would call a normal bad guy. Kat and her family are normal bad guys, but Taccone wants his paintings back, so bad that he is having Kat do it for him. One thing that had crossed my mind was “Why doesn’t Taccone just go to the police for his paintings?” If he can’t does that mean that they aren’t his in the first place? He gives Kat two weeks to get the paintings back. Will her teenage crew be able to get them back in time?

                The second book is called Uncommon Criminals.  Again Kat and her teenage crew come together to get the Cleopatra Emerald back to its rightful owner; which is who exactly. At first the team got the Cleopatra Emerald back to who they thought was the right person. But people aren’t always who they seem to be. Realizing what they had done it is their job to get the Emerald back to the Auction House. Since that person had tricked them into giving her are Kat and her crew able to pull it off from one of the best thieves in the world? She had even tricked Kat’s Uncle Eddie and Uncle Charlie into hating one another. Will the brother’s fight stand in the way of Kat needing to have them both in the plan? Or will the plan fail completely? After all, the Cleopatra Emerald is cursed.

                If you want to read great books then I would recommend reading this series. You may learn something about art in Heist Society.

Kidnapped by Gordon Korman

The Kidnapped series by Gordon Korman is an exciting book filled with mystery. This series follow the On the Run series. When I had first read this series I had read it on a recommendation from a friend. I had read the Kidnapped series as soon as I could, but I hadn’t read the On the Run series. So once I figured that out I made sure I read that series.

                The first book in the Kidnapped series is Abduction. In this book Meg Falconer is kidnapped for not so mysterious reasons. Since her parents are had mistakenly help out a terrorist group, they had just been proven innocent. At first they had no idea why that should influence a kidnapping, but then the lights went on and they had figured out that the kidnappers would kidnap Meg for some kind of revenge, or ransom.  Now to try and get Meg back Aiden, Meg’s older brother, has to team up with the one person who had given the Falconers all of their bad reputation. He must team up with the FBI’s Agent Harris. He was the one who put their parents in jail. He was the one who turned Aiden and Meg into fugitives, and chased them 7,000 miles. Will Aiden be able to handle it, or will he go off on his own and follow the clues only he could know. Will Meg even live through this kidnapping, since she saw the kidnapper’s faces?

                The second book is called The Search. Now that Agent Harris had been taken off of the case Agent Sorenson took his place. This could be good and bad. Good because the Falconers don’t like him. Bad because Agent Sorenson is a by-the-book kind of person.  So that really won’t help the clues that Meg is giving because only Aiden and Harris will go for them. Aiden is eventually forced to leave because nobody believes that Meg is sending clues. The only person who does isn’t on the case. Aiden has to go back to living like a fugitive if he doesn’t want to be returned to home. Will he be able to do it and succeed at finding Meg? Or will he find himself in to much trouble to handle it on his own?

                The third book is called The Rescue. In this book Meg has escaped from her captors. But she couldn’t have had worse weather to do it in. She ends up getting caught in a blizzard with two feet of snow on its way down. Meg’s parents have decided to get pay the ransom that the kidnappers want. When they go to pay they figure out that the person that they trusted may just be another person in the kidnapping? Will she get caught by the blizzard and get hypothermia? Will Meg get caught by her kidnappers again? Who could the fourth kidnapper be?

                   I totally recommend this book for anyone who wants to read a series filled with questions. It is an amazing series.