Gregor and the Marks of Secret: The Underland Chronicles, Book 4

I enjoy complex and intricate young reader's books, and these have so far lived up to my expectations.

Character development is handled brilliantly. The plot is fresh. I came away wanting to hear more about the characters and their lives.

There are some interesting points to mention. I'll limit myself to minor plot points, no major spoilers.

It's interesting that the underland word for "human" is "killer". They seemed uncomfortable with that, but it makes sense.

Not because I think humans are especially violent compared to other species. In most aspects, we're just an unremarkable species. We're not very strong, fast, or massive. We don't have any interesting body parts like wings or claws. We can't fly or burrow or spin webs. Basically all we have to distinguish ourselves are our tools. And the most distinctive and interesting tools we have are our weapons of war.

Even if the underland humans kill as much or less as the other animals, it would be a stretch to expect them to be named after their screwdrivers or shovels. I wonder now if this was the type of reasoning that the author went through. Could be... or maybe she just wanted to portray humans as being an especially violent species.

I also found it very interesting that much of this latest book seemed to be inspired by history and the second world war.

The Bane seems to be the rat version of Hitler, uniting the rats in an attempt to perform genocide on the mice - a transient species of intellectuals with no fixed home who are blamed for the current conditions that the rats find themselves under.

And his plan for killing them is to trick them into entering a volcanic "gas chamber".

And there's the classic question "If you could go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby, would you?". It's very interesting that these books touch on the underland version of that question.

It's an excellent read, I recommend it.

I would recommend this book if my friend had read the previous ones, after all, it is a continuation of the story, and it would be hard to follow without reading the ones that come before this one.

I've listened to the Hunger Games trilogy, and I've listened to Gregor from the first book, and they are equally good. Paul Boehmer is a great narrator and he does a pretty good job with Gregor and all the characters.

Ít does, because the next one is the end of the story and Gregor's journey.

This book is good, but it didn't hook me up as Gregor and the Profecy of Bane, but I'll keep listening because I want to find more about Gregor's end and all of Sandwich's profecies.

I have listened to all 5 books and think Paul Boehmer does a fantastic job with all the different characters - highly recommend and keen to listen to other books narrated by Boehmer.

I would love to see this series made into movies. Tag line - Harry Potter goes underground!

Yes, but only as an entire series - it is entertaining

I am ready for Ms. Collins to publish more books, either in this series or a new series. The Underland was a fascinating world and the interactions between Underland and Overland was fun to imagine.

Not necessarily.

Gregor

His ability to present each character so that the listener knew the difference.

Yes.

This book had lots of action and ended right at the beginning of the next book. This book was my favorite so far out of the first four books. Going to start the next one right now.