Sam Temple is sitting in history class when suddenly his teacher disappears. No poof, no explosion… just there one minute and gone the next. All around Perdido Beach, all at once, the adults have suddenly vanished; everyone over the age of fifteen, in fact, is nowhere to be found. Alone and confused, the remaining residents of Perdido Beach band together whilst they try to solve the mystery.
But the disappearances are just the start of the madness. Soon it becomes apparent that some of the kids are developing weird powers – and not all of them want to use them for the good of the group. Due to a previous accidental heroic effort, the kids turn to Sam for his leadership skills and along with the help of his friends Quinn and Astrid, Sam tries to bring order to the chaos that is the large group of unsupervised, afraid children. Despite his best efforts, groups splinter off, convinced they have better ideas than Sam and that isn’t even the worst of his problems. Somewhere, lurking deep down in the mines, is a terrible secret that could blow their fragile community apart.
Gone – in fact, the entire six book series – is an original masterpiece. So many elements have been contributed to this storyline and yet they all work seamlessly together. The myriad of characters that blur the line between hero and villain pretty much from the word go create an intense chemistry that lingers throughout the whole story. The world that Michael Grant creates is one that I couldn’t find a way out of by myself; you’re honestly trapped until you finish the last book!
