Gone

Gone Series, Book 1

By: Michael Grant

Narrated by: Kyle McCarley

Length: 17 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears. Gone. Except for the young. There are teens, but not one single adult. 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.

Michael Grant's Gone has been praised for its compelling storytelling, multidimensional characters, and multiple points of view.

©2008 Michael Grant (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"[ Gone] will leave readers dazed, disturbed, and utterly breathless." ( Booklist)

Narrator too absolute on when character "said"

Where does Gone rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

7 Read series but was hoping for better narrator because the story is so good.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Gone?

mindset of children

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Kyle McCarley?

Therese Plummer

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

FAYZ

Any additional comments?

No

Intresting YA Story with Rough Narration

Any additional comments?

Under the Dome meets X-Men in this entertaining YA novel, it's just a shame about the narration. I am echoing many other reviewers in saying the awful narration renders this book (and the rest of the series) close to un-finishable. It is so over-preformed it is cringe-worthy. As I really enjoyed the story I powered through and finished it, but let's just say I will be reading physical copies of the rest of the series.

Great story!

The story was so good that I listened to it at home, which isn't common for me. I usually only listen in the car. I kept wanting to know what the countdown was, and didn't figure it out until the middle of the book. My only criticism is the narrator. The narration is so bad that I almost stopped listening to it. I cringed whenever he said "SAM SAID" or "ASTRID SAID". Also, when it would move from one scene to another, I would be lost, because the narrator lacks the ability to transition from one thing to the next clearly. I would think that we were still on one part of the story, when it would actually had move on to the next. I'd have to rewind and make sure that I didn't miss something. And his Hispanic accent is painful to listen to. I almost gave this 3 stars for the narration alone, but the story was so good, I decided to give it 4. It brings up things that I wouldn't have thought of in a world without adults. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series!

awesome

i loved it. I can't wait to start the next book. At first I thought this book may not be for me, but midway through, I was hooked. recommend for sure.

A Suspenseful Action Filled Thriller

When I first heard of the Gone Series from my older sister, I was 13 and had only just gotten into reading.

At that time, all I’d read was Harry Potter and The Lightening Thief and while yes, those are great stories, they don’t hold even a flicker of a candle to this series or even, this book.

From the very first paragraph, you’re thrown into this crazy, mysterious new world, filled to the brim with drama, romance, humans and monsters alike. No one is safe and even when the characters think they’re safe, it’s shown very quickly that they’re not and they will never be safe.

Happiness and Sadness are intertwined with Greed, Rage, Nativity and Revenge and all are put together into one story that leaves the reader needing more after every single page, leaves the need to know what happens as the utmost priority.

Bo other story has gotten me to feel the way I do when I read this book because despite everything, despite the drama, the romance, the suspense and the action, the driving force of this story isn’t that monsters exist and are hurting humans.

No, it’s that the humans themselves are monsters and humans will do anything to get what they want and what they want isn’t always good.

And sometimes, the evil humans, the ones who are just monsters in disguise, are stronger than the good guys.

Oh my.....she SAAIIDD!!

How could the performance have been better?

Please review how the reader says the word, SAID.....there are a LOT of them in the book and they are irritating to listen to!

Any additional comments?

I have listened to this book and am still at the beginning, but I am hitting my head on the desk because of the way the reader says the word, SAID! Oh my God....doe he have to emphasize it so?? I am considering stopping this series as I cannot imagine listening to that many books read by the same guy and hear all the ... "Saids" pronounced that way!! It seems he reads them all....and there are something like 6 books? Really?? OMG!

the narrator's not at fault, people.

so first off let me get the most important point of my review out of the way. There is nothing wrong with this narrator. I particularly enjoy them, they did a great job on the super powerds series. now I will agree that the whole Sam said Blake said Sam said thing is annoying but it is absolutely not the narrator's fault. That's how the book is written and since it's unabridged the narrator has to read it verbatim. and that's a bad habit a lot of writers, especially new ones have where they aren't very good at creating natural conversation flows so they feel like they have to specifically point out what characters speaking every time someone speaks. After a while you run out of different ways to just say this character said that so you start reverting to just saying character said over and over again.

now to the actual book review

it was... Okay. it's kind of hard for me to really give a specific review for it because it wasn't really bad short of some of those annoying writing Tendencies like the said said said thing. and the story wasn't really bad either, except for one really extremely obvious on the nose meaning behind a specific name following the big twist but if the book wasn't so serious most of the time I would have thought it was tongue in cheek but instead it just comes off as kind of cringe-worthy.

my biggest problem with this book is nothing really happens in it. I mean they throw out a bunch of pieces of weird things happening but they don't explain any of them and nothing really gets resolved by the end of the book. I mean there are definitely things I would like to know more because there's potentially some really interesting information but the problem is this book is clearly leading into the rest of the series but how can you expect someone to want to read an entire four or five books series when you don't really give them anything to latch onto in the first book? it's one thing to leave a person with questions and the desire to know the answer to them, it's another to just shamelessly dangle information Out Of Reach without giving the reader anything to actually latch onto beforehand.

also there were a few times where I feel like the bullies came off as a little too... I don't know. stereotypical? maybe this was just my experience cuz I had plenty of bullies in my school's growing up but very few of them actually fell into these kind of tropes especially with a couple of the characters Hammer really hard on basically being racist or insulting a disabled kid. it wasn't really offencive to me as a reader it was just really cringe-worthy and I felt like they focused a little too much on that kind of stuff in some scenes, especially one seen near the end where they put a huge emphasis on someone named calling someone else and the character basically has an emotional breakdown over it and then in the next chapter they've basically forgotten it.

overall there was just kind of a lot of inconsistency in the book. So I mean, I don't think it's a bad book if you can get through the whole thing and you're interested enough to try to find out what the fuck is going on then by all means do so and plan to get the other books but I really don't think this is a book to read by itself. There's too many loose threads and not enough meat and potatoes of a story in this first book to justify it to stand alone by itself. I feel like there was a lot of extra fluff that could have been cut out and they could have merged this and another book together to give a more fulfilling story that would have genuinely made me want to continue the series

Good back, bad narration

Book was good....narrator, not so much! Couldn't get past how the narrator would say, Sam said, or Astrid said.

performance was terrible

the narrator was absolutely ear deafeningly atrocious. I've read this book before and loved it and thought why not get the audio book to listen to. dear god do not do it. absolutely wretched.

Amazing book.

I loved this book. It was very exciting and fun. I would definitely recommend this book. The performance was also very good. Not my favorite but still amazing.