Fear by Michael Grant

I know angelaf already posted a nice long review on this, but screw commenting - I'm gonna write my own XD

Summary:

It's been one year since all the adults disappeared. Gone.
Despite the hunger and the lies, even despite the plague, the kids of Perdido Beach are determined to survive. Creeping into the tenuous new world they've built, though, is perhaps the worst incarnation yet of the enemy known as the Darkness: fear.
Within the FAYZ, life breaks down while the Darkness takes over, literally—turning the dome-world of the FAYZ entirely black. In darkness, the worst fears of all emerge, and the cruelest of intentions are carried out. But even in their darkest moments, the inhabitants of the FAYZ maintain a will to survive and a desire to take care of the others in their ravaged band that endures, no matter what the cost.
Fear, Michael Grant's fifth book in the bestselling dystopian Gone series, will thrill readers . . . even as it terrifies them.
Review:
So I had been anticipating reading this book for a long time because, frankly, I'm addicted to this series. The disturbingness, as well as the fact that it isn't over yet - and it won't be until the FAYZ wall comes down - compels me to keep reading - even if I don't always like what I'm reading. With ever book since Gone, Grant has been escalating things a little more, making each book a little more disturbing, increasing the Darkness' influence, building towards what I hope will be an uber-intense, uber-epic, final battle between The Darkness and the kids of PB (that's Perdido Beach for those who haven't read the series). Based on Fear's premise and its position as the penultimate book in this series, I had thought that this book would continue to build on the intensity on the previous ones and contain the first half of the big finish. I was mistaken. And disappointed. Instead of the plot coming to a head, some of the series' bigger problems did instead. And then this book had its own problems... sigh... So I guess that means it's time for me to pick this book apart. Where to start?
1. Sexual content. I wouldn't have such big gripes with his doing this if he had actually made it a) make sense and b) consistent with the rest of the plot. Why doesn't it make sense? Well, since when does a girlfriend come back after having been gone for four months and lose her virginity to her boyfriend without even talking to him? It makes no sense, especially with all the previous conversations Astrid and Sam had previously about whether or not to do it. Maybe if it had happened later on I would have had to (begrudgingly) admit it worked as part of the plot and moved on, but it didn't, and so I get to rant about it. Also, telling everyone that Edilio's gay after all this time makes no sense either. He doesn't have the tastes that a gay guy would. Look at Colton in this past season of Survivor. Now look at Edilio. Now back at Colton. Now back at Edilio. Sadly, Colton is not Edilio. In the end it's like Grant said to himself "I need to make this series more "realistic" (read: amoral)" and then did a double take and was like "but I don't want to lose my Christian audience members..." (cue segue into second problem)
2. Mixed religious messages. "...so I'll throw in alot of biblical references/allusions to appease them." This just messes things up even more. By now all the Christian characters have basically abandoned their faith and Brittney now worships the gaiaphage (how twisted is that?), yet Grant throws in alot of biblical allusions and even goes so far as to put a lengthy quote from Psalms at the beginning of the book. What're you trying to say Grant? Really?
3. Pacing/Intensity. Usually the Gone books have been very fast paced and have lots of action. In other words, they are very plot-driven. Fear is totally different in this regard. There's not much action, what action there is is far too predictable (in other words, LAME) and the pacing is slow and at times boring. One might call Fear character-driven but I just call it boring. There are no big, bloody, epic battles like there have been in the previous books. The dome doesn't turn dark half fast enough to actually be exciting/scary - it takes the surprise right out of it. It would be one thing if Grant truly portrayed the darkening of the dome as something to dread but, too much time is spent explaining how there will be panic when it goes dark and not enough is spent on WHY the dome going dark is so scary. It's not like everyone who reads the book will be afraid of the dark. I'm not, so I just didn't get it for quite a while. I constantly felt like asking "So the dome is going dark, what's the big deal?" Also, based on the summary, I had thought the premise of the book would be like The Dark Island from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (the book, not the movie) where all your worst nightmares become reality. It was disappointing to see this was not the case, as it would have made the book far more exciting.
4. Characters. One thing some people have said is a plus of Fear is how the characters are developed more and how Astrid is more relatable and all that blather. If you ask me, Grant already developed his characters plenty in the other books and I much preferred Astrid the way she was. Grant talks about characters and how frustrated they feel far too much - it just makes things boring and doesn't really advance the plot at all. What was also annoying was the way he portrayed Caine. I preferred Caine when he was a real antagonist, and unafraid to use his power ruthlessly. In Fear he seems to have become all wishy-washy, two-dimensional, and meh as a character in general.
5. The poorly or unexplained. Firstly, I don't get why, if the Darkness can be reborn in a human, why it couldn't be reborn in an older human - its sheer force of will would make it capable of it. It made sense when it was trying to get Pete to create a body for it, but why the only alternative was Diana's baby I can't understand. Secondly, why does the dome turn black on the inside but not aboveground on the outside if it's truly because the gaiaphage is running out of energy? Third, the dome is MADE of the gaiaphage? How's that supposed to work? Fourth, why did Alfred give up so fast? - he was never portrayed as a quitter... Sixth, if Gaia could survive being burned by Sam, why did she run away and not finish the job of opening the dome? And so on and so forth.
6. Lack of originality. So the premise of these books has described as Lord of the Flies meets X-Men meets Stephen King's Under the Dome but that doesn't mean Grant had to parallel Lord of the Flies quite as closely as he has. It's obvious by now that Sam = Ralph, Caine = Jack, Little Pete = Simon, The Darkness = The Lord of the Flies, and Astrid + Edilio = Piggy. There are even two distinct groups now - Sam's and Caine's - like there were in LOTF. The parallels are way too close for comfort if you ask me.
Plague is officially my favorite book of this series and Fear is my least. Some people have said that Fear is their favorite, but I really can't see why - it just didn't live up to the hype. I'm hoping Fear is like the first part of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movie in that it's a setup for an epic final battle/conclusion, otherwise this series has the potential to end on a real sour note. I won't tell people not to read this book - if you've gotten this far, you might as well finish the series. Hopefully Light will be better though.
3.5/5 stars