I just finished Hunger, sequel to Gone by Michael Grant. The second in this series came out recently, which was great, while I bide my time waiting for Catching Fire, sequel to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins as well as the sequel to Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson!
Tristan and I both read Gone and liked the idea of the story and the sequel is just as exciting.
The idea behind Gone:
Everyone over the age of 15 suddenly disappears (poof) and all the children are left to fend for themselves in Perdido Beach, CA. Children learn to live with the loss of their families as well as find a way to live day-to-day! This would be hard for my children. That basic element of good and evil, of course, comes into play. Some kids begin to step up and take charge. Sam, Astrid and Albert organize and most of kids begin to look to Sam for answers. Perdido Beach is also home to Coates, an elite prep school with its own leader, Caine. Adding Coates into the already difficult equation adds to the pure excitement.
In Hunger, good vs. evil continues to play out with Caine and Sam struggling with leadership of their own straggling "teams". As the title suggests food is the main concern for both sides. The grocery store is down to a few meager cans and kids are choking down random jars and cans of food (you know, all the stuff kids would normally hate). Sam, Astrid and Albert know they need to organize kids into helpers, gather more food from fields and solve a few in-fighting going on amongst the town kids. There are a ton of plot conflicts back and forth-just when you think things are resting easy-BAM something else stirs it up! I love some of the characters...Sam, Astrid, Quinn! I can only hope the third book will continue their story well.