Sometimes people are locked away to keep others safe from them; sometimes people are locked away to keep themselves safe from others.  Michael Grant’s Hunger tells the story of a group of kids locked away for their own safety, but locked in their prison, hidden away from prying eyes, is a danger greater than any of them can imagine.

The book starts three months after the final battle of its predecessor, Gone, and all of the familiar characters are back.  After rebuffing the attacks of the kids from Coates Academy, Sam Temple now finds himself as one of the two oldest inhabitants of the FAYZ and the boy in charge of life in general.  Sam is a natural leader, and he was a key part of the defence of Perdido Beach, but he is still only fifteen, and the responsibilities of running what amounts to a small (adolescent) town have begun to wear on him.

Life moves on in the town. Kids are still developing strange powers, and the divisions between the “freaks” and the “normals” threatens to spiral out of control. One of the most pressing needs is food–and the simple task of harvesting cabbages from a field quickly highlights what will be a source of trouble for the kids of FAYZ–the kids are not the only ones showing strange talents; animals, insects, even birds, have started showing strange and disturbing new abilities: talking coyotes, worms with serrated teeth and territorial impulses, and bats that can swim complicate even the simplest of plans.

Hunger is aptly named and not merely because of the physical hunger that haunts the characters in the novel.  As the kids are slowly starving (and make no mistake, there is not enough food), there is something that feels an even deeper and darker hunger wrapping itself around the minds of those who are susceptible.  It lives in the dark and makes demands that threaten to tear to pieces the imperfect world the kids of the FAYZ had begun to create. It has already caught up with Caine, the leader of the kids at the Coates Academy, and Caine has begun to plan.

Michael Grant continues with his adept characterizations and tight plotting in this second book.  In fact, for a book that comes second out of a projected six, Hunger can nearly stand on its own, only needing Gone for the back-story.  There are a few new faces as some new kids develop mutant powers (and the powers themselves are always interesting) while others take a stand for the “normals”, and Grant continues to explore the possibilities and pitfalls of a society run by teenagers.

The heart of the book is still Sam Temple, reluctant leader and compassionate teenager, but this is an ensemble cast and other characters begin to hold their own and work alongside him to keep the kids of the FAYZ alive. None of the situations will be new to a reader of young adult novels, (and comparisons to Lord of the Flies are inevitable) but Grant does a superb job of making the problems of hunger, strife, and an outside enemy page-turningly suspenseful, and the book leaves the much to be explored: why is the FAYZ barrier still up? What will the kids do about food? Are their parents (and the rest of the world) just on the other side? It is a mark of how suspenseful the events of Hunger are that the big questions being left for another book doesn’t feel frustrating, and the questions seem important enough to continue searching for answers.

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