'Gregor the Overlander' by Suzanne Collins.
6/10 as a child
If the name sounds familiar, good. It should. Suzanne Collins wrote The Hunger Games (which I've reviewed recently) and because those books were so amazing I wanted to give her other stuff a try.
The Underland Chronicles are a series of books aimed towards a much younger audience.
As far as I can tell, all of the books follow an eleven-year-old boy named Gregor. In the first, he and his little sister fall down a ventilation shaft in the basement of his apartment building and find themselves in an underground world.
No, I don't mean shady dealings with gangs. I mean a literal 'under-ground', miles under the earth's surface. He finds giant cockroaches, bats, spiders and rats coexisting with humans who have lived beneath the earth in the darkness for generations.
The book follows him and a small band of reluctant creatures and humans on a hunt through the underland for his father, who had disappeared some years before. It's a very basic, very simple storyline in a mildly complex fantasy world. Unlike Collins' other works, the target audience for this series is quite specific, aimed at 8 - 11 year olds and probably appealing to boys more than girls. I can't see myself as an eight year old enjoying the adventures of a boy with a bunch of cockroaches, spiders, rats and bats.
That being said, the story is a good one, and I'd recommend it. To the right people. Even as an adult reader, the book had a somewhat endearing quality that had me rolling my eyes and smiling when hints the size of NYC dropped in front of Gregor and he didn't notice.
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