THE DEAD & THE GONE

THE DEAD & THE GONE

By Susan Beth Pfeffer

2008

308 Pages

From Inside Cover:

When life as Alex Morales had known it changed forever, he was working behind the counter at Joey's Pizza. He was worried about getting elected as senior class president and making the grades to land him in a good college. He would have never expected that an asteroid would hit the moon, knocking it closer in orbit to the earth and catastrophically altering the earth's climate.He never expected to be fighting just to stay alive.

My Thoughts:

A couple of months ago I read and reviewed the first book of this trilogy by Susan Beth Pfeffer called Life As We Knew It. It was a great book. I was a little worried to start the second installment-sophomore slump and all that. But I'm happy to say that The Dead & The Gone was not a disappointment. Whew!

While Life As We Knew It revolves around Miranda and takes place in a small town-Miranda has her family.

The Dead & The Gone takes the same event and centers it's story around Alex, a seventeen year old Puerto Rican who lives in the heart of New York city.

Alex's parents disappear in the aftermath of tidal waves-his mother never makes it home from her job at a hospital while his father was out of the country when disaster strikes. He now becomes the soul provider and caretaker of his two younger sisters.

The entire situation seem hopeless as we watch Alex and his sisters try to survive as the city around them falls apart. Food shortages, disease and mass chaos surround them.

I can't wait to read the next book in this amazing trilogy-This World We Live In.

Although I'm pretty sure I might need a massage and a stiff drink before I pick it up.

ITS THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT....

LIFE AS WE KNEW IT

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

2006

337 page

From Inside Cover:

When Miranda first hears the warnings that a meteor is headed on a collision path with the moon, they just sound like an excuse for extra homework assignments. But her disbelief turns to fear in a split second as the entire world witnesses a lunar impact that knocks the moon closer in orbit, catastrophically altering the earth's climate.Everything else in Miranda's life fades away as supermarkets run out of food, gas goes up to more than ten dollars a gallon, and school is closed indefinitely.But what Miranda and her family don't realize is that the worst is yet to come.

My Thoughts:

WOW!

The story is told through sixteen year old Miranda's journal entries. It's starts in in May just as the world is getting ready for an asteroid to hit the moon-for some reason it's not considered a big deal? Which sort of puzzled me-Surely there was some Jeff Goldblum character out in the world scratching his head muttering to himself and anyone who would listen that this whole impact thing would have a CATASTROPHIC EFFECT??

Nope. In fact people are celebrating and having BBQs and block parties-WTF? Haven't any of these people seen Independence Day??

So the asteroid hits the moon and pushed the moon closer to the earth producing CATASTROPHIC RESULTS-tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions. It's bad people-very, very bad.

What I love about this story is that we see all this happening through the eyes of a sixteen year old. She and her family are trying to survive this horrible earth changing event but she still has the thoughts and actions of a teenager who wants to go to the prom and have a boyfriend. Miranda was a very real character with real feelings and emotions.

I have to admit that when I finished the book I was tempted to run out to the nearest grocery store and stock up on water, canned corn and Cheetos.

If you read the story and loved it as much as I did you need to check out the Life As We Knew It Book Club Discussion over at Forever Young Adult. Thought provoking and Laugh out loud funny. Go check it out.

I also bought the second book in the series: The Dead and the Gone which I'm going to try to hold off on reading until our family vacation coming up in a few weeks.

I bought this book used on Amazon and will be donating it to my Public Library.

I recommend this book for ages 10 and up.