Gone (Wake Series, Book 3) (Wake Trilogy) (Hardcover)

~ Lisa McMann (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The third and final book in the paranormal teen series that includes The New York Times bestseller Wake and Fade.

Things should be great for Janie--she has graduated from high school and is spending her summer with Cabel, the guy she's totally in love with. But deep down she's panicking about how she's going to survive her future when getting sucked into other people's dreams is really starting to take its toll. Things get even more complicated when she meets her father for the very first time--and he's in a coma. As Janie uncovers his secret past, she begins to realize that the choice thought she had has more dire consequences than she ever imagined.

Read an excerpt for Gone.

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A Note to Readers from Author Lisa McMann

Writing Gone, knowing it was the end, was so difficult that I procrastinated quite ferociously. I knew that once I started, I'd have to go underground like I always do when I write a book--I just attack it full on and write until I'm crooked and crazy every day for a month or six weeks or so, surfacing to order takeout or absent mindedly say hello to my children and husband. But this time it was different. Not only would it have to be a perfect ending to a trilogy, but I'd have to attack it without transferring my own sad feelings onto the pages. I needed to be in the right place in my head before I could start.

Finally, one day in August 2008, I could procrastinate no longer. I sat down for five weeks, wrote my heart out, and surfaced again with a finished draft. All I knew is that I loved the ending. I cried through half of it, but it felt good to me. And I was so glad to be finished with the hard part--there was no way on earth that I could ever do that again. I was overjoyed to go to the editing stages, and I polished it up, nice and shiny.

My agent read it. "I think you'll need to make some changes," he said, "but let's see what Jen has to say."

"But the ending!" I cried. "The ending! Isn't it great?" I didn't want to hear about the other stuff.

"Sure, the ending's great. Let's wait for Jen." I was certain Jen would love it. I was certainly wrong. It wasn't good enough.

It took me four days to finally get up the courage to read through the editorial letter, and then I cried for four more. And then I had to face the truth: Jen was totally right, and I was totally wrong. My last hurrah wasn't strong enough. I had been holding back, not wanting it all to end. And though she didn't say it outright, I knew what had to happen. Not just some tweaking. Not just a thorough edit. Gone needed a full rewrite. A do-over.

And so, with only three weeks of solid work time before I was to leave on the Fade tour, after all the tears were cried out and I had my determination back, I found a theme song for Janie--Dido's "Here With Me." I turned that song on full blast--it has this awesome pounding beat--and I closed my eyes, playing it over and over for an hour or more, picturing Janie. How she'd feel after the thing with Durbin, how she'd really feel once the dust settled on the green notebook. And then I turned off the music and started from scratch, but this time from a very raw place. No more holding back. And I wrote that futhermucker again, with all the grit and determination it needed to be a survivor. I never wanted to say good-bye, but I've done it twice now. And the second time felt incredibly good and right. I hope you think so too.

A year later, I'm so excited for Gone to hit the bookstores, but I haven't been sitting idle. I'm on to new adventures and fresh beginnings with new characters. Cryer's Cross is my next young adult novel. It's a stand-alone paranormal thriller with a side of creepy and of course, a bit of romance. No dreams this time around, but there's definitely something unexplainable going on. Seventeen-year-old Kendall lives with her parents on a potato farm in a tiny community in Montana, where nothing bad ever happens until Jacián Obregon comes to town and a ninth-grade girl goes missing.

Additionally, I have a few other books in the works with Simon & Schuster. Again in the young adult department, slated for spring 2012, Dead to You is an emotional thriller about a missing boy who finds his way home after being gone nine years. And for my first foray into the world of middle grade, I am so excited to share with you The Unwanteds, a dystopian fantasy about kids who are exiled from their homeland when they display signs of creativity to a hidden world where they are trained to use their abilities and hone their magical skills. Look for this one in fall 2011.

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From Booklist

Dream-catcher Janie must decide her fate: continue living in society and helping the police but eventually become blind and crippled, or isolate herself completely. The choice becomes even more difficult when her father, in a coma and on the brink of death, comes into her life for the first time and reveals important information to Janie through his dreams. Cabel remains a steadfast and loving companion, and Janie’s mother, a barely functioning alcoholic, plays a greater role in this volume. The popular trilogy, begun with Wake (2008) and Fade (2009), ends on a hopeful yet open note that will likely have fans clamoring for McMann’s next effort. Grades 8-11. --Heather Booth

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse; 1 edition (February 9, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416979182
• ISBN-13: 978-1416979180
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #703 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #8 in	Books > Teens > Social Issues > Dating & Intimacy > Fiction
  #25 in	Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Love & Romance
  #32 in	Books > Teens > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction

• This is item 3 in The Wake Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing for the Last Book in the Trilogy, February 17, 2010

By	N. Manning (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Reason for Reading: Next (and last) in the series.

Summary: Janie has been left with a decision to make about her future and concentrates on making that decision. However, a wrench is thrown into her contemplations when her never before known father shows up in ICU causing her alcoholic mother to go off the deep end and add a twist to her previous choice. Now she must decide which is lesser of two evils.

Comments: Right of the bat I'll say this was rather disappointing. For a good portion of the book, from the beginning, the story mostly concentrates on Janie's dealing and coping with her alcoholic mother. Which would have been fine if this was just another teen dysfunctional family novel (which I abhor) but it was supposed to be the final book in a, so far, exciting paranormal trilogy. Janie has become very good at blocking out dreams unless they hit her out of nowhere, so during this part of the book there is barely any semblance of paranormal activity.

The introduction of Janie's father and his story that Janie learns through his comatose dreams was an interesting plot move and was certainly the highlight of the book. I enjoyed the twist it brought to the story and the extra dimension it added to Janie's decision. In the end though, I thought her decision lacked logic and I came up with a different way in which she could have possibly solved her dilemna.

I won't go into any details about what I thought of the casual, s*xual relationship between Janie and Cabel, except that I was not impressed. In general I was not impressed with Gone much at all; I read the book very quickly, I was already committed to the characters and enjoyed the previous two books *very much* but Gone just did not share an exciting plot with them. The father's part was good but not that exciting and I didn't pick up this book to read about the trials, tribulations and effects of an alcoholic on a family. Readable, but disappointing for the last book in a trilogy.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Left me with nothing..., February 16, 2010

By	Diane Mchugh "taylormac" (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was disappointed with Gone. The ending was good, but there was no definitive climax or moment that made you have to finish the book. About halfway through I stopped and couldn't understand why no conflict or action had happened yet. It wouldn't start for a while. I absolutely loved Wake and Fade. I read them both in two days. They were exciting and romantic. Gone had the romance down, but the excitement was seriously lacking. The entire book was about Janie making one decision. No bad guys, no struggles, just a decision. If written well, that could have been an interesting story, but most of the book was Janie, who, in all the other books, is steadfast and strong, whining and complaining about her life. I would have liked to see her act with the same strength as she usually does.
I like the lyrical style of the book, but the cursing is a bit of a turnoff; however, I put up with it in the first two because the story was so exciting. Not so much in Gone. While I like how it ended, I wish Gone had left me thinking about it and playing it over in my head. There were no wow moments or parts where it shocked me. I guessed what was wrong with Henry pretty early on. All in all I was just left not feeling anything for this book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Shame..., February 18, 2010

By	T. Miyagi "Lea" (Texas) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I loved both Wake and Fade and was stoked for the conclusion. The problem, however, is that Gone doesn't give you one. The entire book could have been edited down to a few chapters; she's sad, her mom's drunk, she loves Cabe but is afraid for the relationship and is trying to figure out whether to live in isolation or risk becoming physically disabled and blind. I felt that in the previous two books the character was much stronger. She was constantly fighting to improve. In Gone she kinda just gave up, which unfortunately made me want to give up on the book.