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Fearless #36
Gone
With Gaia's graduation from high school, Pascal's best-selling series comes to an end...only to be reborn again. Can you feel the fear?
Gaia learned what it's like to feel fear -- and it wasn't pretty. Now, just in time for her last few weeks of high school, she's back to her normal, fearless self.
Unfortunately, everything else is far from normal. An evil business empire is trying to manufacture and sell anti-fear drugs to U.S. Army soldiers. Gaia wants to call in the CIA, but it's risky: It means playing by a whole new set of rules.
With graduation quickly approaching and the possibility of government involvement, Gaia's got serious decisions to make. And her choices will surprise even the most devoted Fearless fans.
The end of an era is here. Be afraid.
Gaia learned what it's like to feel fear -- and it wasn't pretty. Now, just in time for her last few weeks of high school, she's back to her normal, fearless self.
Unfortunately, everything else is far from normal. An evil business empire is trying to manufacture and sell anti-fear drugs to U.S. Army soldiers. Gaia wants to call in the CIA, but it's risky: It means playing by a whole new set of rules.
With graduation quickly approaching and the possibility of government involvement, Gaia's got serious decisions to make. And her choices will surprise even the most devoted Fearless fans.
The end of an era is here. Be afraid.
262 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 9, 2004
3 people are currently reading
541 people want to read
About the author
Francine Pascal
1,148 books1,853 followersFrancine Paula Pascal was an American author best known for her Sweet Valley series of young adult novels. Sweet Valley High, the backbone of the collection, was made into a television series, which led to several spin-offs, including The Unicorn Club and Sweet Valley University. Although most of these books were published in the 1980s and 1990s, they remained so popular that several titles were re-released decades later.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 8, 2015
What a load of crap this was
December 10, 2018
Summary: Dr. Rodke tries to further his plan of giving Invince to the military but it falls through after Gaia is stopped from being dissected by Dr. Ulrich and Skyler, Heather and Sam get little screentime at the prom, Oliver and Jake get information from Chris, Jake dies and Oliver confesses to killing Mary Moss which makes Gaia escape New York city after saying her final goodbyes to Ed, and the series ends with Gaia becoming a secret agent which sets off the Fearless FBI spin-off.
Man, was this a terrible finale. Everything about Gone was TERRIBLE. Characters went underused, plots could have been done better, and overall this was one of the worst endings for a book series I have ever read. Hell, I could have written a better ending! The ending to Fearless makes other equally bad endings like Allegiant and Mockingjay look better written in comparison!
Well? Where do I start on this poor excuse for a finale?
1. The Author's note was a admittedly a good plus but knowing that Francine Pascal imagined herself as Gaia to write a lot of the book didn't sit well with me; it made it feel like Gaia was indeed a self insert. And I didn't know how readers were supposed to "Lose yourselves in the fantasy of being Gaia Moore" since Gaia is a blatant Mary Sue and this series' writing is unrealistic.
2. Even if it was made up, emotions do not come in genes! In fact, emotions come from the limbic system in the brain. Why couldn't the series center on Gaia's "unique" brain chemistry instead of coming up with this half-assed gene explanation? It would make more sense for Dr. Rodke wanting her brain instead. It also sounds stupid for someone to wonder how many "happy genes" they have.
3. While I'm thinking about it, why didn't Dr. Rodke instead try making a pill that increases the taker's IQ? After getting known about how smart Gaia is and doing tests on her, he gets driven to make a genius pill instead of a fearless one. Instead of trying to cure "the worst disease in the world" (Um, hello? Cancer needs a cure too) that is Fear and rehashing Loki's earlier subplot, it's Gaia's geniusness that gets targeted this time? Who would rather be fearless instead of having an IQ in the 200s?
4. In my opinion I think Skyler's name sounds utterly ridiculous. Why couldn't he be named Peter or something?
5. Why is this book suddenly 180-ing how the Rodkes feel about LGBT when it was already established that nobody had a problem with it?
6. Heather sight is finally regained, but why couldn't we see this happen in a subplot? Why couldn't Heather or Sam have any subplots?
7. I don't remember Gaia's phone suddenly getting service again, did Skyler handle it offscreen or was it just an unintentional plothole? If Gaia's phone still wasn't getting messages, she wouldn't have gotten that voicemail from Jake. Also why couldn't Jake and Oliver trace Skyler's phone at the first chance? It would sure save a lot of wasted time.
8. All the misandry in Gone was unnecessary and should have been done away with.
9. I did find it amusing when Ed knew the prom would be anti-climactic, almost as if he was commenting on the story itself. Also, it was an extreme disappointment that the prom was anti-climactic even when it was hyped up for the last few books. I even expected Ed and Gaia enjoying a dance together, but that never happened.
10. Why did Gaia need more evidence about the Rodkes when she was at the meeting Skyler went to where Invince and Gaia were discussed? Gaia should have been smart enough to piece that information together.
11. Gaia seeing Skyler typing wouldn't work unless the keyboard was really high up or Gaia was watching Skyler type his password from the side where she could see the keyboard. I don't think the book really specifies this part which makes it more irritating. I don't care how good Gaia's eyesight supposedly is, I just want it to make sense!
12. What was the purpose of Sam learning about Heather sleeping with Charlie (Not knowing she was raped) if he was never going to bring it up to her?
13. The series keeps flip-flopping on whether Sam actually died or not. Did he or did he not?!?
14. I'm really divided on Jake's death as I felt that Francine Pascal didn't know what to do his character and decided to kill him off. There's was no point in letting Jake die. Sure, I found him a boring character but I felt at the same time he could become more interesting with development. He was already a better- even if forced- love interest for Gaia anyway compared to Ed and Sam. He could have even joined the FBI force with Gaia. And you know what's more of a disgrace? Having Gaia not going to his funeral to pay her respects or comfort his family as they all deal with their grief of Jake, Like the ever so heroic teen she is! She's didn't even tell Ed that Jake died and now the Village School students and the karate club (whatever happened to them?) are to find out about Jake's fate themselves. Words don't even come close to summing up my anger about this bullshit.
15. I don't understand how Ed is going to be lonely if he still can email Gaia; it's not like she's going to be gone forever. In fact, they likely would have access to video chat websites.
16. Gaia running away didn't make any sense. Is Suko not at all affected by a 17/18 year old girl under her care suddenly running off miles away from NYC? Also, what would Tom think??
17. Speaking of Tom, where the hell was he in this arc? Even if he was on a mission, why didn't we get to see what he was doing? I kept hoping for Tom to show up and comfort Gaia for make it up for being away so long, but there's nothing; not even a POV chapter. If you really wanted Tom out of the story for Gaia to be kidnapped or whatever why didn't you kill him off? Leaving him absent in Gone just makes Tom look like an awful parent.
18. Many characters were wasted. Whatever happened to the people at the park like Zolov? What about the people at the boardinghouse? How's about Jake's karate friends? What was the point of mentioning Ivy in book 1 and the character recaps IF SHE NEVER APPEARS IN THE SERIES?! You could have done so much with these characters even if it made the book 600 pages in total. For example, have Gaia bid farewell to Suko, Alexa (Who may as well never had existed because of how little time the book showed her), Zan, and the cook while having Jake's karate friends mourn Jake and perhaps having Gaia sit by Ivy on the bus she leaves on and reestablish a friendship with her (Perhaps Ivy could have been working with Gaia in Fearless FBI). If you wanted a character death, you could have done that with Zolov instead. Gaia goes to play one last game with Zolov in the park before leaving NYC after the Rodkes get arrested but is told he is dying and Gaia goes to the hospital to see him say his last words to her before he dies. I could go on and on about how underused the cast of Fearless is but you get the gist.
19. At the back of the book, there's recaps for the characters and story (along with "Yearbook" excerpts) but some details irked me:
1) The character recaps says Mary died by an assassin posing as a drug dealer. I'm pretty sure that wasn't what happened. What really happened was Mary got shot by Loki when she was learning too much about Gaia's past and Loki left the drugs near/on her body as a mislead to what actually went on. Perhaps Loki wrote that bit down in his "Appendix A" files, but I'm not buying it. :l
2) Why wasn't Jake on the list of people who died from being around Gaia? If Jake hadn't hung out with Gaia, he wouldn't have taken the bullet for her and he would never had taken part in all of those dangerous missions. Were these outdated laptop files? I suppose they are as she still has Mary down as "Killed by Skizz".
3) Megan Stein doesn't know Tatiana was arrested? I'm sure that "Local Teen Attempts To Violently Attack Girl In Karate Dojo" Would end up in a newspaper eventually.
4) The part where several characters have quotes summed up about how they think of Gaia, I don't think Heather's bit makes much sense as she did grow to respect Gaia somewhat as the series dragged on.
20. Technically this bit is from the sneak peak of Fearless FBI, but according to Gaia she claims Low Self Esteem is an insidious disease. She isn't wrong, but are we forgetting depression can also make people feel just as bad if not worse?
Final Summary:
As I now conclude my Goodreads review of every single Fearless book in the main series, I still agree that this series is nearly terrible aside from a few pros such as decent cover art and potential. Unfortunately, those pros are greatly outweighed by the cons and the most times any series has made me angry. The ending was pathetic, the writing was crap, the characters couldn't have been any more bland, plotholes and contradictions litter the entirety of the story's universe, and it only got worse as it went on. Fearless could have been much more better than it actually was, but instead it sucked.
Overall Rating - 1 Star
Man, was this a terrible finale. Everything about Gone was TERRIBLE. Characters went underused, plots could have been done better, and overall this was one of the worst endings for a book series I have ever read. Hell, I could have written a better ending! The ending to Fearless makes other equally bad endings like Allegiant and Mockingjay look better written in comparison!
Well? Where do I start on this poor excuse for a finale?
1. The Author's note was a admittedly a good plus but knowing that Francine Pascal imagined herself as Gaia to write a lot of the book didn't sit well with me; it made it feel like Gaia was indeed a self insert. And I didn't know how readers were supposed to "Lose yourselves in the fantasy of being Gaia Moore" since Gaia is a blatant Mary Sue and this series' writing is unrealistic.
2. Even if it was made up, emotions do not come in genes! In fact, emotions come from the limbic system in the brain. Why couldn't the series center on Gaia's "unique" brain chemistry instead of coming up with this half-assed gene explanation? It would make more sense for Dr. Rodke wanting her brain instead. It also sounds stupid for someone to wonder how many "happy genes" they have.
3. While I'm thinking about it, why didn't Dr. Rodke instead try making a pill that increases the taker's IQ? After getting known about how smart Gaia is and doing tests on her, he gets driven to make a genius pill instead of a fearless one. Instead of trying to cure "the worst disease in the world" (Um, hello? Cancer needs a cure too) that is Fear and rehashing Loki's earlier subplot, it's Gaia's geniusness that gets targeted this time? Who would rather be fearless instead of having an IQ in the 200s?
4. In my opinion I think Skyler's name sounds utterly ridiculous. Why couldn't he be named Peter or something?
5. Why is this book suddenly 180-ing how the Rodkes feel about LGBT when it was already established that nobody had a problem with it?
6. Heather sight is finally regained, but why couldn't we see this happen in a subplot? Why couldn't Heather or Sam have any subplots?
7. I don't remember Gaia's phone suddenly getting service again, did Skyler handle it offscreen or was it just an unintentional plothole? If Gaia's phone still wasn't getting messages, she wouldn't have gotten that voicemail from Jake. Also why couldn't Jake and Oliver trace Skyler's phone at the first chance? It would sure save a lot of wasted time.
8. All the misandry in Gone was unnecessary and should have been done away with.
9. I did find it amusing when Ed knew the prom would be anti-climactic, almost as if he was commenting on the story itself. Also, it was an extreme disappointment that the prom was anti-climactic even when it was hyped up for the last few books. I even expected Ed and Gaia enjoying a dance together, but that never happened.
10. Why did Gaia need more evidence about the Rodkes when she was at the meeting Skyler went to where Invince and Gaia were discussed? Gaia should have been smart enough to piece that information together.
11. Gaia seeing Skyler typing wouldn't work unless the keyboard was really high up or Gaia was watching Skyler type his password from the side where she could see the keyboard. I don't think the book really specifies this part which makes it more irritating. I don't care how good Gaia's eyesight supposedly is, I just want it to make sense!
12. What was the purpose of Sam learning about Heather sleeping with Charlie (Not knowing she was raped) if he was never going to bring it up to her?
13. The series keeps flip-flopping on whether Sam actually died or not. Did he or did he not?!?
14. I'm really divided on Jake's death as I felt that Francine Pascal didn't know what to do his character and decided to kill him off. There's was no point in letting Jake die. Sure, I found him a boring character but I felt at the same time he could become more interesting with development. He was already a better- even if forced- love interest for Gaia anyway compared to Ed and Sam. He could have even joined the FBI force with Gaia. And you know what's more of a disgrace? Having Gaia not going to his funeral to pay her respects or comfort his family as they all deal with their grief of Jake, Like the ever so heroic teen she is! She's didn't even tell Ed that Jake died and now the Village School students and the karate club (whatever happened to them?) are to find out about Jake's fate themselves. Words don't even come close to summing up my anger about this bullshit.
15. I don't understand how Ed is going to be lonely if he still can email Gaia; it's not like she's going to be gone forever. In fact, they likely would have access to video chat websites.
16. Gaia running away didn't make any sense. Is Suko not at all affected by a 17/18 year old girl under her care suddenly running off miles away from NYC? Also, what would Tom think??
17. Speaking of Tom, where the hell was he in this arc? Even if he was on a mission, why didn't we get to see what he was doing? I kept hoping for Tom to show up and comfort Gaia for make it up for being away so long, but there's nothing; not even a POV chapter. If you really wanted Tom out of the story for Gaia to be kidnapped or whatever why didn't you kill him off? Leaving him absent in Gone just makes Tom look like an awful parent.
18. Many characters were wasted. Whatever happened to the people at the park like Zolov? What about the people at the boardinghouse? How's about Jake's karate friends? What was the point of mentioning Ivy in book 1 and the character recaps IF SHE NEVER APPEARS IN THE SERIES?! You could have done so much with these characters even if it made the book 600 pages in total. For example, have Gaia bid farewell to Suko, Alexa (Who may as well never had existed because of how little time the book showed her), Zan, and the cook while having Jake's karate friends mourn Jake and perhaps having Gaia sit by Ivy on the bus she leaves on and reestablish a friendship with her (Perhaps Ivy could have been working with Gaia in Fearless FBI). If you wanted a character death, you could have done that with Zolov instead. Gaia goes to play one last game with Zolov in the park before leaving NYC after the Rodkes get arrested but is told he is dying and Gaia goes to the hospital to see him say his last words to her before he dies. I could go on and on about how underused the cast of Fearless is but you get the gist.
19. At the back of the book, there's recaps for the characters and story (along with "Yearbook" excerpts) but some details irked me:
1) The character recaps says Mary died by an assassin posing as a drug dealer. I'm pretty sure that wasn't what happened. What really happened was Mary got shot by Loki when she was learning too much about Gaia's past and Loki left the drugs near/on her body as a mislead to what actually went on. Perhaps Loki wrote that bit down in his "Appendix A" files, but I'm not buying it. :l
2) Why wasn't Jake on the list of people who died from being around Gaia? If Jake hadn't hung out with Gaia, he wouldn't have taken the bullet for her and he would never had taken part in all of those dangerous missions. Were these outdated laptop files? I suppose they are as she still has Mary down as "Killed by Skizz".
3) Megan Stein doesn't know Tatiana was arrested? I'm sure that "Local Teen Attempts To Violently Attack Girl In Karate Dojo" Would end up in a newspaper eventually.
4) The part where several characters have quotes summed up about how they think of Gaia, I don't think Heather's bit makes much sense as she did grow to respect Gaia somewhat as the series dragged on.
20. Technically this bit is from the sneak peak of Fearless FBI, but according to Gaia she claims Low Self Esteem is an insidious disease. She isn't wrong, but are we forgetting depression can also make people feel just as bad if not worse?
Final Summary:
As I now conclude my Goodreads review of every single Fearless book in the main series, I still agree that this series is nearly terrible aside from a few pros such as decent cover art and potential. Unfortunately, those pros are greatly outweighed by the cons and the most times any series has made me angry. The ending was pathetic, the writing was crap, the characters couldn't have been any more bland, plotholes and contradictions litter the entirety of the story's universe, and it only got worse as it went on. Fearless could have been much more better than it actually was, but instead it sucked.
Overall Rating - 1 Star
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 8, 2012
Well...I'm not quite sure what to say about the conclusion of Fearless (excluding the short-lived FBI series that follows). It definitely ended much better than I'd expected; I felt that there was a fair amount of closure for most of the characters. I do think that it would have been kind of nice if Gaia had been allowed a purely "happy ending" for once, but, all things considered, I guess it could have been worse for her.
January 14, 2014
There are a few things that I didn't understand. Who is D and when did we meet him? When did Gaia go to Florida to save D? How did D end up in Ohio? Otherwise a good series.
January 21, 2021
This should have ended like 10 books ago.
May 21, 2017
Lol, I love how Gaia's dad didn't even bother to show up for the series finale. Way to go, Tom. Parent of the year for sure.
Super bummed about Jake's death - he was by far the most normal and least whiny of Gaia's boyfriends. And then of course a fan-service kiss with Ed had to be shoehorned in, ugh. Way to reward his Nice Guy syndrome.
Also, Loki/Oliver just now came to the realization that he needs to leave Gaia alone? Okay, yeah, dude, whatever. I'll believe it when I see it.
The appendices at the end were unnecessary and bizarre. Like why the fuck does Sam have a "crunching numbers" list where he counts the number of times Katia confused Loki with Tom? How does he even know that?
Otherwise, I'd say this is a reasonable conclusion to the series, albeit (as I mentioned in my review of the last book) somewhat disappointingly focused on the Rodkes. I started reading these in January as kind of joke, and I can't say I've come to have a deeper appreciation of them, but they were at least entertaining... most of the time.
Super bummed about Jake's death - he was by far the most normal and least whiny of Gaia's boyfriends. And then of course a fan-service kiss with Ed had to be shoehorned in, ugh. Way to reward his Nice Guy syndrome.
Also, Loki/Oliver just now came to the realization that he needs to leave Gaia alone? Okay, yeah, dude, whatever. I'll believe it when I see it.
The appendices at the end were unnecessary and bizarre. Like why the fuck does Sam have a "crunching numbers" list where he counts the number of times Katia confused Loki with Tom? How does he even know that?
Otherwise, I'd say this is a reasonable conclusion to the series, albeit (as I mentioned in my review of the last book) somewhat disappointingly focused on the Rodkes. I started reading these in January as kind of joke, and I can't say I've come to have a deeper appreciation of them, but they were at least entertaining... most of the time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 2, 2021
It took me 13 years to finally complete this series. Hard to give a proper review for a book that was probably more aptly targeted to 13yo me.
I loved the "re-read" of sorts though.
I loved the "re-read" of sorts though.
August 5, 2023
I was very disappointed in the ending. I can't remember why, as it's been many years since I read this series.
December 19, 2025
0.75 but had mark as 1 on here.
SPOILERS AHEAD
!!!!!
!!!!!
!!!!!
!!!!!!
That wasn't how thought it would go down at all. I refuse to believe that Jake's dead. I don't care he was my favorite. Also at back book it lists dead characters through the series and Sam was listed and we know he alive but Jake's not listed so I'm going forever believe he survives and Gaia just doesn't know because she left New York after what goes down.
Thankfully right before Gaia's killed by Skyler and the (Dr. Uriel? Spelled that wrong I'm sure) Loki/Oliver shows up with Jake and the CIA to take the Rodkes down but Chris went postal after helping get them there because he refused to let his dad and brother win and push him our. He also fell for a trap like he set for Jake earlier in the book.
Multiple people shot and that's why I refuse belive Jake dead because it seemed like he was earlier when Chris had him attacked. I know bullet whole and all this time but look at Sam he survived.
I hated the Friends of Heather crap. Was happy see Heather starting see again. Sam her seem be getting back together. Gaia after taking everyone down and saying goodbye to Ed because she couldn't leave without at least doing that gets on a bus.
I'm made through 36 of these books that I started the series on back in high school like 2003 or 2004 so I feel accomplished there but most these I hated. Book 30 should been end so Gaia and Jake could been happy. Oliver not resorting back to Loki which he did confess to stuff at end before Gaia leaves. He also called CIA to deal with Rodkes.
Overall the series is like a 2.75 rating was too many ugh ones. I'm not reading the FBI series and I won't be reading the super Gaia books to find out about her brother. At least she has him now to go see.
SPOILERS AHEAD
!!!!!
!!!!!
!!!!!
!!!!!!
That wasn't how thought it would go down at all. I refuse to believe that Jake's dead. I don't care he was my favorite. Also at back book it lists dead characters through the series and Sam was listed and we know he alive but Jake's not listed so I'm going forever believe he survives and Gaia just doesn't know because she left New York after what goes down.
Thankfully right before Gaia's killed by Skyler and the (Dr. Uriel? Spelled that wrong I'm sure) Loki/Oliver shows up with Jake and the CIA to take the Rodkes down but Chris went postal after helping get them there because he refused to let his dad and brother win and push him our. He also fell for a trap like he set for Jake earlier in the book.
Multiple people shot and that's why I refuse belive Jake dead because it seemed like he was earlier when Chris had him attacked. I know bullet whole and all this time but look at Sam he survived.
I hated the Friends of Heather crap. Was happy see Heather starting see again. Sam her seem be getting back together. Gaia after taking everyone down and saying goodbye to Ed because she couldn't leave without at least doing that gets on a bus.
I'm made through 36 of these books that I started the series on back in high school like 2003 or 2004 so I feel accomplished there but most these I hated. Book 30 should been end so Gaia and Jake could been happy. Oliver not resorting back to Loki which he did confess to stuff at end before Gaia leaves. He also called CIA to deal with Rodkes.
Overall the series is like a 2.75 rating was too many ugh ones. I'm not reading the FBI series and I won't be reading the super Gaia books to find out about her brother. At least she has him now to go see.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 8, 2008
this made me cry not just because the series was over but also because it was so sad
July 15, 2013
3.5 star. This rating is for the series as a whole, not just this book.
October 1, 2024
I read and loved this whole series, which is mindless, action-packed, and awesome. But couldn't handle adding 36 separate books on Goodreads.
April 28, 2014
I'm sad to see this end, it was time though. I'm conflicted on the end. Jake.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews