299 HOURS 54 MINUTES

Harry Potter, The Twilight Saga, The Hunger Games… The question on everybody’s lips is: “What’s coming next’? – My answer to you is the fantastic, Gone. This is the first of 6 major novels, and when I received it from my friend as a Christmas present, I knew that I had unwrapped something very special.

Gone is as fast paced as a Fast & Furious film. Alex Temple is sat in a History class when his teacher mysteriously vanishes. Poof. Himself and the children of Perdido beach quickly work out that every person above the age of 15 had strangely vanished all at one precise moment. Gone. Trapped inside a spherical barrier, painful to the touch, they live, or at least they try. No escape. “Suddenly it’s a world without adults and normal has crashed and burned.” Sam, with the help of a few friends, Astrid, Quinne and Edilio, try to work out what’s going on in the FAYZ (Fallout Alley Youth Zone – the world inside the barrier) and what it all means. But, without adults, chaos quickly strikes the beach town and war violently breaks out.

Although it’s a child’s book, I enjoyed it immensely (and I’m 16!) It’s as fast paced as you want a novel of dystopia and mystery to be; what can only be describes as a page turner. Once you’re wrapped up in the world of the FAYZ, you won’t want to leave until you find out what’s happening! Even if it does mean you have to buy all six of the novels… Which means, I will be going out this weekend to buy the second instalment of this brilliantly imaginative series.

7.5/10 (Not bad, for a kid’s book!)