Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

As their numbers diminish, the kids of the FAYZ struggle to survive. Food is strictly rationed. Killer worms haunt fruit and vegetable fields. Sam, the 15-year-old mayor of Perdido Beach, has to settle petty disputes among the trapped FAYZ residents. When more kids develop superpowers, Perdido Beach's population begins to split into Team Mutant and Team Normal. Sam, however, has bigger problems than the town's splintering. His evil twin brother, Caine, has awakened after three months of delirium, and Caine has big plans to destroy Sam's town. The breathtaking pace, thrilling action and gruesome monsters of Gone (2008) are back in a big way. Unfortunately, so are the stilted dialogue, the frustration that comes from the author writing much and saying very little and blatant sexism. In one passage, Sam "is struck by" how "good" an 81-pound anorexic girl looks. Sam's beautiful genius girlfriend, Astrid, only once thinks a negative thought about having to care for her autistic five-year-old brother. Readers who have not read Gone will be lost, thanks to an inadequate recap. Missable. (Science fiction. 12 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In this sequel to Gone, everyone's starving in a new world without adults. The rich kids clash with the townies, the mutants fight the normals, and the insidious Darkness is coming for them all. The dramatic tension peters out after a two-hundred-page climactic battle scene, but fans of dystopian novels will gobble this one up despite its excesses. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Horn Book
From HORN BOOK, Copyright © The Horn Book, used with permission.

In this sequel to Gone, everyone's starving in a new world without adults. The rich kids clash with the townies, the mutants fight the normals, and the insidious Darkness is coming for them all. The dramatic tension peters out after a two-hundred-page climactic battle scene, but fans of dystopian novels will gobble this one up despite its excesses. Copyright 2009 of The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved.