Book Report

Gone


Gone is a sci-fi novel about the life of a kid named Sam living in a dystopic reality where everyone over the age of 15 had disappeared and a radius around a nuclear plant had a barrier, causing the town to be trapped. The main character forms a group of friends that adventures through this dystopian universe.

Sam Temple was a fourteen year old boy, who was sitting in his classroom in a small town named Perdido Beach when suddenly, his teacher and another kid had disappeared. They instantly "poofed" as his friend Quinn called it. Soon, they would realize what had happened. With the help of Astrid, they realized that everyone over the age of 14 had disappeared. No one knew why. As  all the political leaders were gone, the towns turned into an anarchy. There were kids wandering everywhere, looking for their parents, some kids as young as a few months old, wailing inside of a daycare. And that reminded Sam, "What had happened to my parents?". 



Sam, Quinn, and Astrid went in search of their parents, but even after they searched every place they would be, they were no where to be found. This was obviously very disheartening to them, but they still needed to find someone very important to one of them. Astrid's little brother, Little Pete. There were several places where he could be. SO they searched everywhere. 



Little Pete was high on the Autism Spectrum, so he wouldn't answer to his own name, multiplying the difficulty of the search. They searched Astrid's house, nothing. They searched the hotel where Astrid's mother worked at, nothing. However, there they found something else that was very important. A weird barrier dividing the tennis court at the hotel. They were obviously confused by this. Sam threw a tennis ball at the barrier. It bounced back, but it didn't have a burn mark. He touched the barrier, but then instantly recoiled at pain of touching it. Quinn started throwing lawn chairs, tennis rackets, all sorts of things at the barrier. There was no visible damage. He eventually gave up. 



They finally searched at the nuclear plant where her dad worked, and they actually found Little Pete, playing pokemon on his gameboy. They eventually returned (with Little Pete) to the Plaza of Perdido Beach. They saw that a group of bullies leaded by a kid named Orc had seized power on Perdido Beach. Being the toughest around, there was no one who could challenge him. But before long, the smell of smoke filled the lungs of everyone in the plaza. They saw that the daycare was on fire! And there was still a kid in the building! There was panic everywhere, children screaming, people rushing to get buckets of water, only to realize that water would only make the fire grow. 



Sam had been known as "School Bus Sam" due to an incident where he saved a lot of kids on his school bus when the bus driver blacked out by taking controkl of the bus and stopping it, so he was already recognized as a hero. He thought it was his moral duty to save that kid in the burning building. He decided to do so. Before he could enter the building, Astrid told him a few words of advice, like to avoid smoke and whatever. Sam entered the building and smoke immediately filled his lungs. It burned his being, making him cry and question why he signed up for the whole "hero" thing. He crawled below the smoke, but could only barely breathe. He finds the door to the room where the kid was. It was locked. He tried to shove the door open, but he was at a bad angle to do so due to him being on the ground. He realized that if he wanted to open that door and save that kid, he would have to stand up into the door and push open the door with all of his force. He stood up and felt the smoke stab his eyes like needles, and he pushed with all his might. He managed to push the door open, and quickly entered te flaming room. He found the kid, but before he could react, the kid shot a scorching hot flame at him! 



Sam had very little time to react, but despite his shock, he managed to avoid the flame. He saw the fire stick onto the wall that was behind him like if it was flaming napalm. Sam was cornered now, he knew that there was no way to dodge the kid's next attack. He decided to summon the power that he had summoned before, in order to make an impossible glowing light, to burn his stepdad's hand off, to defend himself. Suddenly, a flash of light appeared from his palms, striking the little girl before she could react. The girl fell unconcious, while Sam was trembling at what he had done. Quicky, he picked up the girl and ran out of the burning building. He managed to survive, but the girl did not. They later buried the little girl. 



This is where Astrid became Sam's love interest (strangely enough). Well, fast forward a bit and then a weird kid named Caine does a preformance and everyone chooses him as their leader. Caine and several others (sam included) formed a group where they swore to protect the citizens of the land. There were several ther people on the team, namely Diana, Computer Jack, Drake, among several others. This group was like a security system in the anarchy. 



However, this system was more based on fear than protection. Drake was a sadist, a person who gets joy out of other's grievance, thus making him a fearable type. All of the other people in the area were scared of him, making them more abiding of the law. Whilst the Coates kids (Caine, Diana, Drake, Computer Jack) came across as the good people, the reality was very different. As shown between dialogues among themselves, they in reality wanted to seize control of the F.A.Y.Z (Fallout Area Youth Zone) and keepthe power to themselves. 



It turns out that Sam isn't the only one with these magical powers. A large bunch of people had them as well, but with different abilities. One girl could move super fast, another could heal people's (and animal's) wounds. Anyways, two twins were nearing their 15th birthday, and people were wondering what would happen to them, when suddenly, one of the girls poofed. Everyone was confounded and in shock. People were scared, and even more the youngest twin, knowing her fate, that she would be poofed in the span of a few minutes. She was crying, when poof! Gone. Ouch. Now people knew that the poof wasn't a one time thing. 



Sam was approaching the age of 15, so he was obviously scared. It was here when Caine and his buddies decided to investigate more about the poofing phenomenon. They got one of the kids who was turning 15, Andrew, and recorded him near the time of his birth. Computer Jack brought out his recording equipment when suddenly, poof! Andrew was gone! crab! This, obviously, was a big surprise. They immediately checked the footage. They saw that right before Andrew poofed, he smiled a bit! 



This caught the attention of the group. What could Andrew be seeing that they weren't? A frame later, they see a monster pop out at Andrew, him still smiling. This was obviously very confusing, but then an idea occured to them. What if Andrew was seeing someone he loved, maybe his parents? They knew they couldn't fall for those illusions. Later, due to them not complying with Caine, Sam and his friends were portrayed as criminals. Both Astrid and Sam were captured, Astrid bringing Little Pete with her. Astrid escapes due to Little Pete's incredible teleportation ability. Everyone was astounded! 



Caine focused on gettng her back, causing Sam to be alone, allowing him to also escape. After a while Sam learns how to harness his powers and he fought Caine, but plot twist, he and Caine were twins. Sam won, but spared Caine's life. 



To conclude, I would recommend this book due to it being a very good page-turner.



By Andrés Díaz, Step 8 Yellow