Hunger

I bought this novel a few years back at a book outlet and it's not until I came home that I realized it was the second installment of a popular series.

The first one, Gone, which I've read a couple of years ago, gives you the gist of what this novel is about. In short, there's been an accident at the main power plant, a nuclear power plant which causes everyone over 15 to disappear and to form a kind of barrier in a 20 mile radius around the plant.

While in Gone the children try to make sense of what happens, Hunger goes further.
By now everyone is hungry and food is running low.
Above that, mutations are manifesting that are not to be meddled with. As with the children, more and more are developing powers.
All this against a backdrop of a vicious 'thing' that hungry as well, makes for a quickpaced and well written story.

I enjoyed it while it lasts, even though I could see some things happening from afar. I'm not judging, I'm clearly not the intended audience. I would've liked this novel when I was of an early high school age and I'm sure that my daughter would like them too when she's a bit older.

Review of Gone

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...(Goodreads)

An entertaining YA-novel is the best way to describe this novel.
The idea behind the book is a very good one, although somehow I'd like to see what this idea would perhaps turn into to when it got in the head of someone like Stephen King. A bit more macabre I bet.
Michael Grant let this be more sedate albeit there is a certain amount of violence in the book, it's very black and white. The good side and the bad, and it could've been more interesting if it had more grey areas in it.

Still it's not a bad read, I enjoyed it while I was reading it, and will probably read the other novels as well, maybe not right away, but somewhere down the line.
I need a bit of grown up fiction right now, because between reading my two year old her bedtime story and reading YA novels, I need a bit of substance in my literature.
Maybe starting 'Fountainhead' because I've been neglecting that one a bit.

Personal rating: 3 stars