Customer Reviews

Gone (Wake Trilogy, Book 3)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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.

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.

Gone, the final installment in the Wake Series was an utter disapointment. Janie and Cabel's story, which in the previous two books was suspenseful, entertaining and heart warming, in Gone was boring, empty, and in the end left me feeling completly cheated out of my money.

In "Gone" Janie finally finds out why she is the way she is. Her father is revealed and Janie finds out he was (or is) a dream catcher as well. After realizing the hard decision her father made which sealed his fate, Janie sees she has an alternative to her certain future of being blind and crippled. Throughout the entire book Janie ponders the choice of leaving her love (Cabel) and going into a life of isolation in the woods as her father did.

The delivery of this storyline that the author decided to conclude the trilogy on could have been done much better. The interaction between the two main characters (Janie and Cabe) was sparce, abrupt and left a completly unfulfilling feeling at the conclusion. Janie had initially decided to leave Cabe because of the dreams he had been having and his inability to express his feelings of doubt to her. When they FINALLY talk about it, the conversation is given to the reader as: They talked a long, long time.... THAT'S IT!!! Tell us Cabe's feelings, Janie's feelings after she knows Cabe's feelings, something. This final climax was what the whole book was about and it was a complete dud.

I pre-ordered this book without question, and without reading any reviews on it. And yeah, I probably would have bought it even after the bad reviews not believing that such an excellent story, with the two previous books being 5 star material could possibly be as bad as they are saying. But unfortunatley it is, and most likely others will have the same view and buy it anyway. I would advise to those people, lower your expectations so you won't be as disappointed as I was.

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.

Wow. What else can I say about GONE? It's poignant, touching, funny and kind of creepy and scary all at the same time. Janie and Cabel are back in the third and final book in this awesome series. I don't want to give away all the plot twists and turns, but a stranger comes into Janie's life and forces her to make a huge decision that may become her undoing. I think this was the best book in the series - it certainly had me hooked from the beginning and Ms. McMann knows how to write a page turner that is both suspenseful AND sexy. I loved this book, but am a little sad the series is over. Can't wait to see what is next for this amazing writer.

p.s. If you haven't read the other two books in the series, Wake (Wake Series, Book 1) is book one and Fade (Wake Series, Book 2) (Wake Trilogy) is book two.

I am a huge fan of this saga, so my opinion is probably clouded by my fangirlism (but please, don't let that stop you from reading my review, I promise I tried to behave). Anyway, this book had the right amount of comedy (very little) and the right amount of drama (a lot more), and overall a bittersweet feeling to it. But still, for me, this was the perfect ending for the series.

Unlike Wake and Fade, there's not police plot to it, and that's a good thing, because those police plots were weak and predictable. Gone is centered in Janie herself, and her own Big Life-Changing Decision (if you read the first two books you know what I'm talking about; if you haven't, I'm not spoiling that for you).

If in Fade the book was centered around Janie, Cabel and Captain, in this book we get a higher dose of the other important people in Janie's life (including a new character). People who may (or may not: again, no-spoiler policy) change the outcome of her decision. I can say that I miss not knowing a little more about Melinda, that lesbian girl who was in love with Janie's best friend. A think that she could have had a bigger role (she had none).

I fell a little more in love with Cabel (never thought that was even possible), I wanted to shout at Janie to wake up (not literally), and I was hooked from page one to the end. I'm sure that fans of Janie will like the way the story ends. At least (as is obvious by the five stars I gave it) I did.

I loved the first two books in this series, so I was excitedly waiting for GONE and simultaneously sad that the book would mean the end of an amazing series. This book delivered for me on so many levels. It really delved into the deeper personal situation that Janie was facing due to discovering her abilities as a dream catcher. While exploring options for her future, she had to consider her relationship with Cabe, and the situation she was putting him in and their future together. Her life was not going to be easy. But then she meets a man who teaches her the one future she'd never truly considered before, and she begins to realize that she has a few more options than she originally thought. (I know that seems vague, but I'm trying not to give spoilers here!) I found this book completely gripping. Slightly different to the other two, because it explores the reality of Janie's life, love and future, but a completely fitting and fabulous end to a wonderful trilogy. Absolutely brilliant! I loved it.

Ever since she learned the startling and dreadful truth about her abilities to visit other people's dreams, Janie has been horribly conflicted. She's torn between her love for Cabel and the want for companionship and her guilt at being such a hardship for those around her. The way Janie sees it, she has two choices, none of them good, but maybe one will give her some peace. But just when she thinks she's chosen her path, an unexpected person shows up...causing her to rethink everything.

The third and final book in Lisa McMann's Wake trilogy is a quick, engrossing read. Though it lacks the pulse-pounding action of Fade, Gone never lacks for excitement as secrets from the past are unveiled and Janie is forced to confront issues she'd rather bury. Written in third person present tense, Gone has a very realistic air that makes it very easy to become immersed into, even as most of the drama unravels in Janie's own head as she pieces together bits of her past in order to decide what she must do about her future. Some of the scenes that might have been more emotionally intense, like when Janie and Cabel finally talk through their relationship issues, are glossed over, and the ending may seem a bit anticlimactic coming right after the intensity of Fade, but the denouement wraps up nicely, leaving readers satisfied. Gone is a thoughtful, absorbing conclusion to a wonderful trilogy.

Cover Comments: I do like the drama of all of the covers in this trilogy, and I especially like how the green is used in Gone. The single chair is a very neat, almost chilling look, and it ties in with the story nicely. This cover is very modern and appealing, and I think it'll be popular for a long time.

When we last left Janie in FADE, things were looking very, very bleak. It didn't seem possible that she could ever have a happy life--not with her boyfriend Cabe, not with her gift/curse of being pulled into other people's dreams, not in her relationships with her mother or her peers--none of it.

But GONE brings Janie, and us, to a very emotional, TOTALLY unexpected, and completely satisfying end. Plenty of suspense, impossible choices, and heart-baring truths in this wild ride to the ending of the trilogy. Highly recommend!

I read that the author wrote another version of this book, decided it was awful, started over, and produced this version instead, which she says she's pleased with. I'd actually like to see the previous version to see if it was any better. This was just an incredibly disappointing "conclusion" to the trilogy. And I put conclusion in quotes because nothing's really resolved. SPOILER ALERT: In book 2, we see her surrogate parent, the Captain, talking about possibilities for getting her help for her physical problems -- that is not picked up on at all in book 3, which I suspect is what most of us were hoping to learn more about. Instead, book 3 seems to suddenly revolve around her parents more than her, with a father thrown in just to add some drama and give her a devil's choice, lose-lose set of options at the end. So, we don't know if she's going to be able to get any medical help. Her mom is still an alcoholic who needs Janie to take care of her, which implies Janie can't ever move out. Janie and Cabel are in a relationship that they'll just take day by day, since apparently if she gets too debilitated it would be bad to have Cabel tied to her.... What she set up for the readers and characters in book two is totally dropped in favor of a different series and different characters (with the same name) in book 3.