Hunger by Michael Grant

Title: Hunger
Author: Michael Grant
Publisher: Egmont UK
Released: September 6th 2010
Pages: 608 (Paperback)
Buy: Amazon


It's been three months since everyone under the age of fifteen became trapped in the bubble known as the FAYZ. Things have only gotten worse. Food is running out, and each day more kids are developing supernatural abilities. Soon tension rises between those with powers and those without, and when an unspeakable tragedy occurs, chaos erupts. It's the normals against the mutants, and the battle promises to turn bloody.

But something more dangerous lurks. A sinister creature known as the Darkness has begun to call to the survivors in the FAYZ. It needs their powers to sustain its own. When the Darkness calls, someone will answer -- with deadly results.


After reading Gone, I desperately wanted to get my hands on the sequel, Hunger - but I had to wait a while because someone had taken it out of the library before me. Anyway, when I finally got around to reading it, I have to say that I was slightly disappointed. But I loved it at the same time? I am so torn with this book, I don't know where to begin.

Firstly, I thought the new characters and their powers weren't so great. In Gone, the prequel to Hunger, we have Sam, Caine, Diana, Jack, Brianna, Dekka, Lana, Bug and Taylor who have the powers of light, telekinesis, reading powers, super strength, super speed, gravity, healing, invisibility and teleportation. Here, the new powers for Duck and Hunter are the powers of density and cooking things from the inside-out. Now although density was completely relevant to my recent exams (Chemistry and Physics) I thought that there were better powers to be made up. Take something from the Fantastic Four - being able to stretch? Being practically a human torch? Or maybe something like Superman - properly flying. I just thought that out of all the possibilities that were out there, density and cooking didn't seem as impressive as the one's in Gone. But then again, Little Pete's real power has yet to be revealed, so I'm pretty excited for that.

One small thing that really bugged me throughout the whole book was the time continuity. Gone finished in October, right after Sam and Caine's birthdays. Then, in the chapter where we were introduced to Duck, it said it was March. But then constantly throughout the book, it said that only three months had passed. Now is it just me, or is that five months? It was such a minuscule mistake, but it really bugged me. Maybe I'm just a perfectionist?

However, despite my complaints I thought the storyline was brilliant. I could imagine that if a bunch of kids under fourteen found all the adults gone, they would eat all the candy they could find, and not priorities and think of the future hunger - which was the main theme for this book. So that was believable in this scenario, and I liked how relevant the plot was to the title. To be honest, I thought it could go a bit more cannibalistic; if they were that hungry, they would have eaten each other. It wasn't pushed to the edge, but then again, this novel seems to be for the ages of 12-17 year olds, so maybe it wouldn't appeal to younger teens so much if it was too gruesome. But it was good, and I especially loved the ending. The last 100 pages were so gripping, and I didn't know what was going to happen - it is that part of the book that it making me unsure as to whether I should give this novel a 3 star rating, or a 4 star rating.

Overall, I do like the series, and I intend to read the next one sometime in September, if not over the summer. I'm hoping that the next book will be a bit better than this one, with more interesting characters and powers. I'm also hoping that the tension will rise, and that there will be even more unexpected moments than before. The idea for this series is amazing, and I really hope that Grant will continue to amaze me.
Rating: 3/5