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 Gone pulls you in right away, from the very first page. No, from the very first sentence. One thing I particularly liked about this book, is that there's not a lot of romance. Maybe it's because the characters are so young, or because there's so much going on, but I actually kind of liked the lack of romance in this story. Though I hope there will be more romance as the series progresses, and the characters mature. 
 The book is told from third person point of view, and it switches perspectives between Sam, the main character, and several of the other characters. I don't usually like third person POV very much, but in this book it's just fitting. 
 Let's talk about characters! Sam is probably the most important main character. He becomes kind of like the leader of all the kids, because this one time, he saved a bunch of school kids from a bus accident and now they all count on him to be the hero again. Then there's Astrid, his (kind of) love interest (but that doesn't develop much until later in the series), who is like, superhot and blond but also a genius. With two other guys, Quinn and Edilio, they form a group of friends. 
 The 'bad guys' in this book are Drake, Caine, and Diana, who are from Coates Academy--this school for troubled kids, up in the hills. We also get to read from their perspective, which makes you realise that they are also just kids who go to a different school and make some bad choices, not like, super evil monster people or something. 
 This book had been sitting on my shelf for a while, and I just didn't get around to reading it. I was hesitant because of the size (so many pages!), but I'm glad I picked it up eventually. The huge amount of pages didn't bother me at all, because it's fast-paced, surprising, and there's always something going on. 
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