Although this was a bit of a slow read, I did enjoy it for what it was. This is perfect for readers who love books that make them ask "What the heck did I just read".

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me free access to the digital advanced copy of this book.

Zara knows how to survive. She grew up training on a survivalist compound with her father, but after something terrible happens, her mother decided to move them away from him and across the country. So, when a malware attack takes out the electricity across the country, Zara knows what she needs to do. Her best option for survival is to use her training and travel with her friends back across the country to find her father, and hopefully, learn more about the secrets of her past along the way.

So many things set this book up as a five-star read for me. I loved the writing style, especially the use of fragments and parallelism together. I also appreciated the video games aspect and how it was explained, especially as someone who doesn’t know a lot about video games. I also thought the beginning did a fantastic job setting the tone and building up of fear. Towards the middle of the book though, the pace slowed down, and I wasn’t as captivated by what was happening to Zara and her friends. I also found myself questioning if the romance was necessary to the plot. Overall, I still really enjoyed Zara’s internal monologue and her drive for survival.

One final thing to note and that I would like to read other reviews about is the discussion of Latter-day Saints. There were a few moments where I worried the descriptions could be perpetuating stereotypes about members of this faith, so I would like to read more reviews from someone who could give their first-person perspective on this.

Survivalist stories are so much fun to read. It is something about the "what if" that captures your attention and keeps you turning the pages. I picked up Amanda Panitch's Gone Dark for a reading challenge I am participating in, for which I needed to read a book about a man-made disaster.

Gone Dark follows a teenage girl raised in the prepper community as she journeys across the country after a complete power grid failure across the United States. We are talking total blackout here, so as you can imagine conditions in the U.S. start to go downhill pretty quickly once the lights go out nationwide.

Five years ago, Zara and her mother escaped their former life on the East Coast, where they lived with Zara's prepper father learning how to survive a catastrophe just like this one, and now have made a new life for themselves in California. When disaster strikes, Zara attempts to make her way back to the one person she knows is prepared to handle a crisis of this magnitude - her father.

As she heads East with a ragtag group of friends, Zara and company encounter something far greater and more deadly than the lack of electricity - humankind completely unhinged as it stares down the end of the world. Will they make it to Zara's father alive?

Gone Dark kicks off with a bang, enveloping readers in a world without all of the luxuries and conveniences we have come to rely on as necessities. The book soon picks up speed with an action-packed plot as our survivors make a treacherous journey across the country. Not lacking for harrowing situations or deadly threats, Gone Dark is a gripping read for teen dystopia lovers.

As an adult reader, I felt that Panitch did more telling than showing, and that her writing was dry. However, this could just be chalked up to the fact that at my age, I expect something a bit more to come from the oversaturated YA dystopian market.

Most of us have probably entertained the idea: what happens to the world if the grid goes down? It should come as no surprise then that authors explore this in teen novels. In this case we have a character with the perfect skill set to survive in an emergency. She knows how to protect herself, where to go for safety, and has emergency supplies ready to go. This can't protect her from chaos, though. From random events that make her survival much less of a guarantee. It informs her choices, makes her and her crew more likely to survive to be sure. The first couple of chapters are tense and action packed. As her group travels, though, their challenges become increasingly strange. Society seems to be crumbling at an accelerated pace. As they face bizarre foes, my ability to engage with the plot waned. What began as an interesting though experiment became chaos and meaningless violence.

3.5/5 stars
I'm glad to know that the author also had nightmares while researching this book. Not glad per se but at least I'm not alone in having nightmares. I had to take it slow because I was ready to go into a full on panic attack more than half the time while reading this. It's terrifying because of how factual and plausible the scenario is, and real life is way scarier than any fictional monsters anyone can conjure up. The characters were decent and I liked the progression of their traits and personalities individually and as a whole. The MC Zara is relatable for me since she deals with anxiety and being a bit of an outcast. This story really made me question things and think about all the what ifs. It has short chapters which helped to be able to take breaks frequently, which I personally needed. Occasionally some of the lines were a bit cheesy or some of the circumstances seemed a little far fetched, but overall it was very realistic. The writing wasn't anything to rave about, which is not to say it was bad, though, either. Close to the end I started putting all the pieces together and was shocked/disgusted (which I think is how you should feel) by the outcome. I liked that our MC also learned a lot of good life lessons throughout the book and by the end was confident in herself and found her place in the world. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

a really good premise, but I wasn't a huge fan of the writing style, and I found the characters kind of shallow

Gone Dark by Amanda Panitch

I love a survival story and this one didn't disappoint. I liked how everything started with blackouts; this feels plausible and realistic which makes me like the plot even more.

Something I really liked, that brought a lot of complexity to the story, was Zara's feelings and relationship with her father. The whole compound and what they escaped from is really heavy but clearly explained with enough detail that it isn't daunting. It was a bit wild to me that they felt this was one of the safest places to be.

I also really liked the team aspect - lots of good characters with redeemable qualities. A likeable cast in a really dire situation is always an interesting read. The author did a great job of showing and building the characters and I liked that about this story.

sadly for me it was an ok read for me , while there was times I was hooked , there was also times that it felt a bit slow going . but overall t was still a good book to read

I couldnt really finish this book as the writing was a bit juvenile to me. I just couldnt get into the flow of it at all.

Zara’s father is a survivalist that lives on a compound. Zara and her mother used to live on the compound too, until seven years ago. Now she lives with her mother and attends public school far away from her father’s compound. Her father’s survival lessons are drilled into Zara’s head and she replays them often. When there’s a widespread blackout, Zara uses her survival knowledge to get away from a strange man chasing her, to find her mother and to help her friends. As they travel looking for safety and to reach her father’s compound for protection, they come across a lot of danger and strange, sometimes creepy situations, cult communities, religious communities, families stealing supplies from them and people that will do anything for self preservation. Interesting, unique dystopian story, 4 stars!

A survivalist story with a teenage MC from a prepper family. Very suspenseful and really made me want to start storing a whole bunch of food!

Fans of apocalypse/survival stories will want to add this to their reading list.

One of the fascinating things about this book is Zara’s conflicted feelings about her dad. She and her mom escaped from his compound, and there’s obviously lots of trauma back there she’s not ready to unpack at the beginning of the book. Yet when the power grids go down, she decides his property is the safest place for her and her friends. I found that idea to be kind of hard to digest sometimes.

It made sense that she had conflicted feelings– he’s still her dad, and she was a child when she lived with him, so a lot of her memories about him are a little mixed up. Maybe what was hard to digest was the idea that Zara would be safe at her dad’s. So while she’s locked in on returning to him as a goal, I felt like that was definitely not going to go the way she hoped.

I don’t want to give anything away. I guess I can say that for the most part, I was satisfied about the way things went down. Not everything went the way I expected, which was okay. But it made sense, and felt like the story resolved for the most part.

I liked Zara’s character and her relationship with Gabe and the rest of her team. I loved the way each teammate brought something different to the group, and the way they learned to depend on one another. Another thing that I liked a lot was the mix of people they met along the way. Certainly there were people for whom the catastrophe brought out the worst in them. But there were a lot of people who were trying to be good people and trying to do good things in spite of a horrific situation.

All in all, I enjoyed GONE DARK. I loved that it’s from a girl’s perspective. It reminded me a little bit of ALONE by Megan E. Freeman.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed this book for the most part! I absolutely flew threw it, and despite it being nearly 500 pages, read it in one sitting. The action was well paced, the relationships fleshed out, and the inner monologue of the main character complex and intriguing. There are a few plot holes, a few scenes that I feel could have been cut to help strengthen the plot, and the ending was a tad too predictable for my liking, but overall I think this is a nice read for anyone looking for a good YA dystopian.

Gone Dark was one of my most anticipated books of the year. And good news, it did not disappoint! I love an apocalypse book, that goes without saying, but this one felt wholly realistic and kept me turning the pages! So let's break down what I liked!

►As I mentioned, it's a very realistic seeming apocalypse. Ugh, people are such trash, right? Like sure things are bad, but humans go ahead and make them far worse than they needed to be. Obviously people were going to die, that's a given, but so many are killed by their fellow man that it's infuriating. And so realistic. Add to it, Zara's prepper background makes her abilities and knowledge seem quite realistic too.

►So morally gray! I love morally gray, and this book was excellent at positing some fabulous moral dilemmas. Zara and her friends have to make some truly awful decisions along the way. Some because apocalypses are crap, and some because humans are. Either way, they weren't easy choices.

►I really enjoyed the characters. Zara seems, at times, paranoid (which makes total sense both because of her background, and the world we're in) and I couldn't help but wonder at times how reliable a narrator she was. But she clearly has the best intentions, and you cannot help but feel for her plight. She also undergoes so much growth and development during the story, and that was great to watch! I also loved the cast of characters she encounters along the way. I don't actually want to say much about them (because you want to go in not knowing who makes it out alive, right?) but they were great, and I enjoyed her relationships with them.

►Quite thought provoking! The thing about a very plausible apocalypse book is, there's almost no way to not put yourself in the main character's shoes. What would you do when Zara makes a certain decision, right?

►There's a bit of a mystery thrown in, too. What will Zara find at her father's? Who exactly tried to attack her at the start? How did this whole thing go down, anyway? Those questions definitely propelled my reading.

My only minor qualm was that the ending did feel a bit rushed, especially considering how much had gone on during the book. But it wasn't a bad or wholly unsatisfying ending either, so I can live with it.

Bottom Line: A realistic apocalypse with likable characters and a ton of adventure is always a huge win in my book.

I had high hopes for this book but ultimately was let down a bit. This is my first dystopian book that I've read and the first YA book in a long time. While I think this would be a great introduction to the sub genre for YA readers, I think I was just expecting more from it. The ending didn't feel finished and while I thought highly of Zara, she did get to be a little annoying.

Zara spent the first twelve years of her life hidden away on her dad’s doomsday prepper/survivalist compound. She was trained to hunt, fight, forage, and, above all, survive. Now seventeen and living in L.A. with her mom, Zara is forced to seek out her estranged father because the power grid has gone down and society is devolving into chaos. She will have to use all of the skills she wanted to forget to save herself and her friends.
•-•-•-•
This is the first of two power grid collapse books I’ve read recently (the other is Aurora by David Koepp), and this was by far my favorite! I’m a huge fan of books with teenage girls surviving apocalyptic situations, and Zara was a particularly realistic and strong protagonist. I really appreciated how Panitch approached Zara’s panic attacks and social anxiety and showed her internal conflict — she was severely traumatized by her time on the compound, but now she’s being forced to rely on and appreciate the skills she learned from her dad to survive. Gone Dark is fast-paced, exciting, thrilling, and terrifying. And the ending left an opening for a sequel… please?!?

This would be a good companion read with Life As We Knew It, and I’d recommend it for ages 12+.

I’m always lured in by a good survivalist story, and I’ve picked up tips from every book I’ve read. With today’s world, you never know when they might come in handy.

Zara spent roughly the first eleven years of her life being raised in a survival compound consisting of only herself and her parents. Her paranoid father taught her valuable skills to keep her alive in case of a disaster, but also not to trust anyone and to think only of herself in order to survive. After a horrible tragedy, Zara’s mother flees across the country with her, leaving her father behind. Being raised in such a different environment makes interacting with other teens difficult, but Zara finds supportive friends in Stella and her brother Gabe.

Zara picks up on signs of the catastrophe her father always predicted, and soon the world is in chaos. With no power and limited food and water, she knows most of the population won’t survive, so she and her friends begin a journey across the country to her father’s compound, picking up others along the way. Zara’s character arc is well-crafted and probably my favorite part of the story. Throughout the novel she hears her father’s voice in her head repeating the rules she was taught – to think only of herself. She soon learns that although she can’t trust everyone she comes across, putting faith in those she cares about increases their chances of survival.

When society begins to break down, it comes with some tense, heartbreaking scenes that may be tough for some readers. It’s scary how quickly humanity is tossed out the window. Although the first part of the story kept me gripping the pages, it slows to a lull about halfway through before picking up again. One of the plot threads confounded me. Zara continues to make an assumption that seemed illogical to me, and I wanted her to slow down and ask herself why it was happening. It’s explained by the end, but fits awkwardly into the overall story.

With plenty of harrowing situations, a bit of romance, and a heavy dose of coming of age, Gone Dark will appeal to post-apocalyptic fans yearning for a danger-filled survival story.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

A thrilling prepper-style book about a teenage girl who must face her fears and lead her friends across the country in the absence of electricity - the virtual dark!

Zara is a 17 year old girl. Virtually normal and average except her and her mother escaped her father’s survivalist compound years ago. The instincts ingrained in her won't go away and she spends a lot of time immersed in the world of video games. When a malware attack turns the lights out on the country as nationally the electrical grid is destroyed. Zara has to step up and lead her group of friends across the country back to her father's compound where she first escaped. It's a great dystopian story filled with the typical journey obstacles and fascinating characters on the way. If you harbor an inner prepper, love stories of young people finding their inner leadership or just enjoy dystopian and disaster literature, #GoneDark won't disappoint! #netgalley #SimonandSchuster

This book was really something! I’ve read quite a few dystopian novels and you are always thrown into it after the fall. But that is not the case here…we get to see the whole thing unfold. Zara is a great MC with her knowledge of survival but definitely needs the help of her friends to keep her humanity in tact when her training kicks in. I can’t imagine the feeling of knowing what needs to be done and everyone laughing it off like a joke. They meet so many interesting characters along the way in their journey to Zara’s dad’s compound. This book deals with a lot of death, and violence, and the honesty of human nature. It’s crazy to think about something like this happening and sad to think that civilization would deteriorate that quickly. There is a really
unexpected twist that i did not see coming
and the ending leaves you with a feeling
of unease and hope at the same time.
Overall, this was an original dystopian
origin story where you just never know
who to trust.