Who Can You Trust When Everyone is out for Themselves?

Lies by Michael Grant

Who is telling the truth?  Who can anyone trust?  Who is out to help the kids of the FAYZ and who is out for their own gain?  There are a lot of questions and very few answers in the FAYZ (Fallout Alley Youth Zone).  It’s been months since everyone over the age of fifteen mysteriously disappeared.  When we last we saw the kids of Perdido Beach, California, the Coates kids including Caine and Diana had to join forces with the Perdido Beach kids including Sam, Edillio, and Astrid to fight the Darkness or gaiaphage.  Electricity is out and the water supply no longer works.  The food situation is a little better for the Perdido Beach kids, but the Coates kids are now starving to death.  With little choice, the Coates kids are going to find a new place to live, they’ve heard about an island.  While Caine is up to his same selfish games, strange appearances are taking place on the Beach.  People report that they have seen not one, but two kids that are supposed to be dead, walking the streets of town.  

Sources of lies are coming from all over, the Council is lying about Orsay Pettijohn, the mutant that can see other people’s dreams and what she is “prophesying.”  Sam is lying about finding Brittney, who is supposed to be dead, Orsay is standing up in front of her followers telling them to take the 15 year jump even though she has doubts of whether she believes the jump is truly the way out or not.  Caine is promising the Coates kids that he will get them food if they follow him, and he has no plan on letting them follow him to the mysterious island.  The list goes on and on and the way Grant has changing point of view characters the audience knows who is lying and why throughout the book.  With the events of the FAYZ getting worse and worse it’s hard to want to continue on with the series because the names of the following books.  Each title seems to get worse and usually at the end of one book the audience just can’t see how it can get any worse for the kids of the FAYZ, then he starts the next book and there it is, circumstances are worse than the book before. 

Astrid and Sam, the main romantic characters of the series thus far are having troubles.  It seems to me that Astrid is using Sam, if I was him, I would wonder if she loved me at all.  I think she uses his power to keep her and Little Pete safe.  Maybe I’m wrong and she does love him, but during this book I was constantly wondering where her true allegiances lie.  I’m not the only person questioning Astrid, as the reader, but also within the book, the entire town is mad at her for the choices she has been making lately. 

Gone the first book of this series was a book club choice of mine and my friend Renae and I have continued to read it without the group.  I have enjoyed this series in some ways, but in others I’m just ready for the series to end.  I will continue to read this series and I’m waiting to see where the series is taken.  I need to know how the kids get out or if they are going to get out of the bubble.  What do you think?  Have you read this series?  Do you want to? Keep reading my friends.