Book Summary: Gone By Michael Grant

Gone
Title: Gone
Author: Michael Grant
Genre: Novel

In the novel of Gone written by Michael Grant I thought the main idea of the novel was survival, this is because it is about a group of kids trapped inside a giant bubble known as the ‘FAYZ’ the bubble is impenetrable from the outside and the inside, so there is no escape for the kids inside. I think the idea of survival is important because the survival rate of children fending for themselves is very low and so there survival is critical to them. The odds aren’t in their favour, I also think this is what makes this book so interesting, was that they are trying to hold everything together and stay as normal as possible. By this I mean they want everything to stay the same as much as possible
Also Albert decides to open up the McDonalds and start serving food like normal. I think the fact that there is still some normality to life within the FAYZ I also think this helps people move on with life in the FAYZ and keeps people sane. I think this also ties into the idea of institutionalised because all the kids are institutionalised and when the bubble is formed it upsets their world and suddenly they want their old mundane life back e.g. “I want my mum, a little boy suddenly”. This giant change has completely up turned their lives, they would have said their life sucked a week before this freak accident but now I can be almost certain that they would give anything to have it back. This is a sign of being institutionalised as a result of this they try and keep everything as normal as possible, because they are thrown into this new environment it causes the children to have erratic behaviour and higher stress levels, this is why they have so much trouble within the FAYZ, everyone is jumpy and scared. This makes me think
In the Cook Islands parents and grandparents take very good care of their children because they love them and they are the next generation so they also want us behaving well. In Gone it is impossible for anyone to take care of the children because they are all outside the wall they need to look out for each other. This is like children living on the street, there is no one there to protect them or provide for them they fend for themselves and it is really sad because most of these kids will end up in gangs simply because their parents weren’t there to protect or provide for them so they went to a gang because they would, but the children wouldn’t realise that the gang was just using them. I think it is really sad that this happens when it shouldn’t have to there are foster families out there willing to take the kids in but they just chose not to, it’s a waste really because they won’t amount to much they will most likely end up in prison. I think this relates to Gone because like these kids they are on their own, but there is no one stopping them from killing each other and this turns disastrous because there are many casualties. I think this is the difference between the two worlds one has order even at the very bottom of the food chain and in the FAYZ there is order but it can be broken at any time by anyone