Bane of Kings reviews the third novel in the popular young adult series named after the first book, Gone. Lies is the third book, which is written by Michael Grant and published by Egmont books.

 “A fantastic, jaw dropping young adult adventure full of moments that will leave you crying out for more. An extremely enjoyable book of epic proportions.” ~The Founding Fields

 Warning! This review contains spoilers for the previous two novels in the Gone series.

Although I don’t review much young adult fiction, in fact, the last YA novel that I reviewed was Raven’s Gate by Anthony Horowitz, I simply had to give you all my thoughts on one of my favourite series, and of course, any fans will know by the cover that Lies is part of the Gone Series by Michael Grant, published by Egmont books.

It’s the third part in the book, and for those of you who have read Gone and Hunger, and thought things were bad in those books, well let me tell you – it’s about to get worse for the kids of Perdido Beach, California.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Gone books, the basic principle of the series is pretty simple. One day, everybody over the age of fifteen vanishes, leaving the younger kids behind in a new world, a world where not only the people begin to mutate, but the animals too.

In Michael Grant’s novels, the titles pretty much tell you about what it the book’s going to be about in one, clear word. After all, the first book was called Gone. The Second was Hunger, where the kids of Perdido Beach had to cope with the threat of starvation.

So without even looking at the blurb I knew what Lies would be about. And I guessed right, for there are many lies that could not even be lies in this book, if you get what I mean.

The basic plot for lies is as follows: Tensions are growing in the area called the FAYZ (Fallout Alley Youth Zone, See the first book if you’re unsure as to why it’s called that). The Mutants are under attack, food is scarce and Sam, the leader has gone AWOL.

Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, the town is set on fire… and through the flames, Sam sees the figure he dreads most – Drake. But that’s impossible, for Drake is dead.

Lies brings back pretty much everyone that we saw in the first two books, Sam, his girlfriend Astrid, Orc, Howard, Lana and so on. They’re all back, and they have changed dramatically since the first book, as Michael Grant takes character development to a whole new level over the course of the series.

Also introduced in this novel, there are plenty of new characters, including Orsay the Prophetess, the girl who can contact people outside the barrier, her friend Nerezza, and not to mention Jill, the girl who has a similar power to the Siren.

And also, there are the adopted kids from the De Sales Island, as seen in the map of Perdido Beach at the back of the novel. Sanjit, Virtue, Peace, Pixie and Bowie make an appearance in this book, to add to the great cast of characters already present.

We’ve had the bad guys go to good guys. We’ve had good guys go to bad guys and then back to good guys again.

It’s as if Michael Grant knows how a teenager’s mind works, and has pulled off yet another amazing novel with plenty of action packed scenes to keep you dragged in and reading until the end of the book.

You won’t want to put it down, believe me when I say this. Mainly because its fast paced, and after all; the first book only happened over a few days. According to the time shown on the book, which is the time until a certain someone reaches their fifteenth birthday (Upon which they vanish and disappear from the FAYZ to only God knows where), Lies takes place over the course of 66 Hours and 52 Minutes.

And considering Gone took place over the course of 299 hours and 54 minutes, that’s even shorter than the first book, yet Michael Grant manages to keep the novels similar lengths, and equally as awesome.

I can’t wait to read Plague, the fourth book in the series, myself.

If I have a criticism for this novel, and only one minor, nitpicking criticism is that Grant tends to use the word ‘said’ a lot, where I feel he could use other words like ‘shouted’ and ‘questioned’.

But yeah, just me being nitpicking. A Great novel, and is possibly one of my favourite books that I’ve read so far this year.

Rating: 4/5

 More Gone: Gone, Hunger, Lies, Plague, Darkness (Coming Soon), Light (Coming Soon)