Gregor the Overlander (2003)

I loved the Hunger Games series, so I’ve wanted to read this one for awhile now. I will say upfront that it’s written for a much younger audience than the HG books and that was hard to adjust to at first.

Gregor and his baby sister Boots fall through a passage in their laundry room of their New York apartment building. They find themselves in an underground world where rats and cockroaches talk and bats are used for transportation. They are in Underland and the people there refer to him as an overlander.

A prophesy tells of an overlander who will play a role in the future or Underland. The people there believe that Gregor must be that overlander and almost without his realizing it, a quest is formed and he is off on an adventure.

The plot and pacing are fine, but I never cared too much about the fate of the characters. It’s strange to read a book about an underground world and realize that the story didn’t even scratch the surface. I wish that we had a chance to get to know the characters a bit more instead of just moving from one bit of action to the next.

BOTTOM LINE: The book lacks the character depth that I grew to love in Collins’ other work. I think this would be perfect for a young reader who loves adventure stories, but it doesn’t work as well for adults. ( )

I want to give this book a better rating because I love the author, but I can't. The writing shows promise but the story's unoriginal. I did really feel for the characters, so much so that I plan to read the second book.
I have hope... Aided by having read her future awesome books. ( )

Adventurous read for boys and perhaps some girls aged 8-12, but not much more. You can see Collins' excellent world-building skills here, but her later 'Hunger Games' is miles away from this introductory series. Still intriguing, but it doesn't leap over ages like her later series for slightly older readers has.
( )

Disappointing. ( )

I recently went solo dining with the 2nd book in the series and sat down at a counter, speeding through the large font and well-spaced text. The restaurant started to fill up and another solo diner sat down next to me. I glanced over at his magazine and saw that it was a scientific journal open to an article about the brain. I casually angled the cover of my Scholastic-published book away from his view and kept reading, very self-conscious of the approximately 18 grades of school between our reading materials.

Sigh.

I'm bouncing around in my reading material lately. I've been trying to force the weighter books and it's like an overtight pair of jeans. Lay back on the bed, take a deep breath, and hope you can wrestle that zipper up before the oxygen runs out or the button pops off and you lose an eye. The YA and younger books are more like comfortable sweatpants, the waistband slightly stretched and the material over the seat taking on a sheen from wear. I need to take in a few sweatpants books before attempting another jeans book. Who am I trying to impress? No need to do the David Hasselhoff on Baywatch stomach suck.

This is what I repeat to myself when I sit next to someone reading a scientific journal open to an article about the brain...you couldn't sit somewhere else, brain guy???

The beginning of the 2nd book helped me pinpoint why I liked this 1st book so much. With the next in the series, Gregor is suddenly having these abilities he never had before. Booooo. The first book moved forward with his own average self, no special powers needed. While he may have been written as more selfless than the typical boy his age, he made mistakes and was cranky like a real boy. When he was courageous, loyal, loving, or expressed empathy, it wasn't unusual - it could be duplicated by any child who read this book. The value of that! You too can be like this!:
[Gregor]* nodded. He could never hate people very long because he always ended up finding out something sad about them that he had to factor in. Like this kid at school everybody hated because he was always pushing little kids around and then one day they found out his dad had hit him so much, he was in the hospital. With stuff like that, all Gregor could feel was bad.
Wonderful.

Oh, the story was set in this quest for his father with a fantastic imaginary world underground featuring people who had lived there so long that they were pale-haired, translucent-skinned, and violet-eyed. The allies and enemies were gigantic bats, cockroaches, and rats. This is meant for a younger audience than The Hunger Games trilogy, so probably elementary age. The quest kicked off with an awful set of prophetic verse (not as bad as Brian "One Trick Pony" Jacques but nowhere near the soaring glory (to me) of Susan Cooper). The ending was rushed. But I loved it for keeping the hero ordinary.

My favorite line? From my favorite character, the little sister, Boots: "I poop!"



*Lookie! The square brackets don't insert a colon anymore! ( )