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Hunger by Michael Grant

Brief synopsis
The isolation continues of the Fallout Alley Youth Zone. And now they're running out of food. Sam is overwhelmed by demands on his attention. Little Pete is fighting an unseen monster. The leaders of the group are stretched in too many directions. And hunger is driving the group apart from within.

Category
YA fiction

Why I chose this book
Next in the series

My personal opinion
The author does an excellent job conveying the feeling of hunger, desperation, despair, hopelessness, and fatigue of the characters. I was a bit discouraged by the introduction of even more characters- the list was already long. But they were worth getting to know.

Warnings
Violence: frequent, not in great detail
Language: none
Adult situations: none, just feelings
Death: frequent, some major characters

Movie rating equivalent
PG-13

Protagonist description
Sam tires of being in charge, constantly having to solve everyone's problems. But he's still the hero.

Point of view
Third person omniscient, changing perspectives

Book length
Medium-long

Story flow
Excellent, lots of movement and action

Grammar and spelling issues
None

Character connection
I'm glad Mary's problem gets attention. Now I want more detail on Little Pete

For series
Independent or integral
Integral, not much review from the previous book (good)

Series review as a whole
This is one of the better series I've read this year. My big beef against the Hunger Games was that it's kids killing kids, and this has some element of that, but they try to avoid it at all costs. This is lacking the plots-within-plots aspect of Harry Potter. But it's a good series. Great characters, great development, clean language, tough choices. Good stuff.

If you only have time for one, read (which one):
Gone, the first one

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