returning to a childhood favorite series

 Childhood is maybe a strong word; teenage favorite? Either way, I'm talking about the Gone series. First six books because I'm too nervous to read the sequel trilogy even though I do own all of them.

So, for some backstory: I did own every single Gone book, in the terrible old covers (side note: I saw someone lamenting how much prettier the old covers were and I'm like ?????????), and before I left my job as a high school English teacher, I donated all of them to the school I'd been working at, because I wanted to rebuy them in hardcover. I had most of them in paperback originally; just the last two, which I believe I pre-ordered, were in hardcover. 

And so this summer, I've been re-reading. And upon first cracking Gone, the first book in the series, I was a little worried, because I did not get sucked in immediately. It was a big thing of, oh, man, this was just nostalgia the whole time. 

But no. No. It was not just nostalgia talking the whole time, or if it was, then, well, that's strong enough to suck me full-on into another Gone obsession, like has happened every other time I've re-read the series. Literally every time I re-read the last book I bawl my eyes out (BLAZE OF GLORY?????? GOD HE'S NOT EVEN CLOSE TO ONE OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS), but this time, even Hunger was getting me a little. Hunger took a while this time around, because uh. I knew it was the sad Hunter Lefkowitz one and didn't want to get to the sad stuff. 

But now I'm on Lies which has, historically, been my favorite in the series because it's the "why the fuck is Howard on the council" book, because we all know the answer is "Orc" but I mean. The best part of Hunger is when Sam sends Howard and Orc back to PErdido Beach like "I cannot believe I'm saying this, but go make sure everything is okay down there." God Fear is going to kill me. 

This was just a word-vomit of feelings, but man. Man. The Gone series.