Hunger

By Michael Grant

Pages: 590

Published by Harper Teen

★★★★

By Mel

 After reading Gone I was skeptical about reading its sequel Hunger. I enjoyed reading Gone but I had feared that like many series the books would become worse. Luckily, that was not the case. In fact, I think Hunger was better than Gone. I felt more captivated by it and I by the end I had trouble putting the book down.

 

 WARNING: Spoiler Alert for Gone up ahead

To recap, in the first book, Gone everyone fifteen and older disappeared. Just like that, gone. Then, with only kids left, they all raided the stores for candy and chips. Eventually a leader had to step up and tell the kids what to do. At first, the hero Sam declined to becoming "mayor" so bullies took over. Then, the troubled kids from Coates Academy came and their leader, Caine gave his speech and took over Perdido Beach. Sam, who turned out to be Caine's long-lost twin brother, disagreed with what Caine was doing and was the only one who was powerful enough to stop him. The book ended with a huge battle between the brothers and Sam coming out on top. Also, Sam and Caine turned fifteen and time slowed down. They figured out how to stay in the FAYZ (Fallout Ally Youth Zone). All they had to do was say no to leaving which is easier said then done. 

 

Now, in Hunger, it is three months later and food has run out. After all the kids raided the stores for junk food, all the fresh produce has rotted, and the kids are surviving on dog food and hot dog relish. Everyone is starving and some are even thinking about cannibalism. Poor Sam is the new leader and he is becoming stressed out under all this pressure. Children are dieing and the rest are starving. Everyone is blaming Sam and asking him why he isn't doing anything to stop it. Meanwhile, they all sit back and watch DVDs and refuse to work. I love how realistic that is. It's hard to reason with six and seven year-old children. They don't want to work. That was their parents job. They can't understand the seriousness of their situation, at least not as well as Sam, Edilio, Albert, Astrid, or any of the older kids do.

 

Also, Caine is back. But this time there's something different about him. A new monster, the Darkness or Gaiaphage is corrupting multiple kids such as Lana, Caine, and Drake (although I don't think Drake's craziness came from the Darkness). This battle seems to involve more then just the Perdido Beach kids vs the Coates Acadamy kids. Something else is there too.

 

This is definitely a great book and now I'm excited to read the next book, Lies! It was super good and very interesting. It almost reminds me of the colonial times in America when the colonists were trying to make a new and improved government. That's what is happening in the FAYZ. They are trying to make a good government with rules and restrictions. But the only difference is that kids are the leaders and children are the only citizens. This obviously poses my complications.