Book Review | 'Gregor the Overlander'

Gregor the Overlander
Suzanne Collins
Scholastic
310 pg., U.S. Paperback
3.5 stars | B-



From Goodreads:

When eleven-year-old Gregor follows his little sister through a grate in the laundry room of their New York apartment, he hurtles into the dark Underland beneath the city. There, humans live uneasily beside giant spiders, bats, cockroaches, and rats—but the fragile peace is about to fall apart.

Gregor wants no part of a conflict between these creepy creatures. He just wants to find his way home. But when he discovers that a strange prophecy foretells a role for him in the Underland's uncertain future, he realizes it might be the only way to solve the biggest mystery of his life. Little does he know his quest will change him and the Underland forever.

Rich in suspense and brimming with adventure, Suzanne Collin's debut marked a thrilling new talent, and introduced a character no young reader will ever forget.


Gregor the Overlander is the tale of a young boy named Gregor who follows his baby sister into the Underland, a world that is very much so the opposite of our own. Collins, the author of the 36.5-million-printed-copy Hunger Games trilogy, creates a story very fun, light, and simple, but at the same time juvenile, and sometimes annoying.


I didn't dislike this book, but was irked by its fast-pacing and awkward comments from the main character. Gregor is eleven, and when I was eleven (four years ago, mind you), I didn't have the same naive, dipstick dialect that he did. Gregor seems to be more of the comic relief for this story rather than the hero, something that really disappointed. I was also really bugged by his little sister, Boots, who, while being adorable, was very pointless in my mind, and became an annoyance and burden as the story went on. 


What I liked about the book was its simplicity, as well as its world-building, a skill that Collins has perfected. I did, however, draw similarities between Panem and the Underland, because I can and because it isn't that easy to avoid doing so. 


I do think this book should remain geared towards a young audience, as it currently is, for its childish facade, but I do think that older readers will be pleased by subsequent characterization and the creation of the world that the book's characters live in. 


The book is the first in a five-part trilogy. Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, Gregor and the Marks of Secret, and Gregor and the Code of Claw are now in stores for reading pleasure.