Review - This World We Live In (The Last Survivors, Book 3) by Susan Beth Pfeffer (3.5/5 stars)

Reading level: Young Adult
Genre: Survival/Post-Apocalyptic
Size: 256 pages
Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
Release Date: April 1, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0547248042
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd in Last Survivors Trilogy
Source: Bought
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
 
This is the third and final book in the Last Survivors series by Pfeffer.  It wraps things up nicely, but was my least favorite book of the bunch.

This book goes back to Miranda's perspective and is presented as day to day journal entries by her.  It has been almost a year since that fateful day when the moon was shoved closer to Earth. Miranda and her family are still surviving.  Things get more complicated though when Miranda's father returns with his new wife and their baby, along with two other kids.  One of the kids is Alex Morales, whose story we read in the second book.  As they struggle to survive, the reader learns that no matter what happens life will continue to limp forward.

This book was a lot less about survival and more about how the characters in the house interacted with each other.  For me that just wasn't as interesting as the previous books have been.  All of the characters are worn and tired and there is very little that is about hope in this book. 

Even Alex and Miranda falling in love, so to speak, was a bit depressing.  There was a lot about this that really bothered me. They didn't really seem to like each other all that much, or even have much in common.  They were just both there and both around the same age so they were a couple.  They quickly went from "I can't stand you" to "I am desperately in love with you" and it didn't make much sense.  I guess if you are living from day to day you learn to not be picky about who you are attached to.

A large part of this book revolves around Miranda's family being torn apart and moving on with their lives.  Miranda's eldest brother finds a wife, who loves him because he doesn't beat her up like her previous guys have.  Miranda's younger brother finds a good friend in Alex's younger sister Julie.  Miranda's mom is kind of the one left floundering, which is ironic considering she is the reason they survived so long in the first place.  No of the characters are all that admirable, they are just survivors and are at times selfish and hard to deal with.

Much of the survival is similar to what you saw in the first book, the only difference being that with spring around the corner they can be outside more.  The book ends fairly open ended as you might expect a book like this too.  There are occasional glimpses of hope throughout, but they are rare.  Basically if you expect that the characters will be miserable and continue to limp through life, well then that's what happens in this book.   They occasionally take solace in each other, but things never really look like they are going to get much better for our families.

Overall an okay read.  I enjoyed that it went back to the journal format.  The characters are very human, which makes them unlikable at times but realistic.  Pfeffer doesn't throw any allusions of hope at the reader; she shows that humans are willing to move on and accept what they have to to survive.  Even the love between Miranda and Alex is shadowed by this sentiment; Miranda often calls Alex "last boy on earth" and mentions that it's better than no boy at all.  I probably won't be reading future works by Pfeffer; while I enjoyed some of the events leading to the apocalypse and reading about how the characters survived things in general, this was just too depressing of a read for me.

This book goes to the following reading challenges:
- 100+ Reading Challenge

 

Review - The Dead and the Gone (Last Survivors, Book 2) by Susan Beth Pfeffer (4/5 stars)

Reading level: Young Adult

Genre: Post-apocalyptic
Size: 336 pages
Publisher: Graphia
Release Date: January 18, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0547258553
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd Book in Last Survivors Trilogy
Source: Swapped through Paperbackswap.com
Rating: 4/5 stars
 
This is the second book in the Last Survivors trilogy by Pfeffer.  I didn't like this book quite as much as the first, but I did enjoy finding out how a large city dealt with the apocalyptic events that took place in the first book.

This book follows around a young boy (17 years old) named Alex who lives in New York City.  It is not a journal like the first book, but tells the story by date and time.  Alex's parents are lost during the event; one is in Puerto Rico and one is working in a hospital when things start to go South for the city.  Alex is left to take care of his twelve year old sister Julie and his fifteen year old sister Bri.  Their day to day survival is chronicled from the point of the moon moving on forward; it seems to cover the same period of time that the first book did.

This book wasn't quite as good as Life As We Knew It.  To be honest I think this book suffered some because it wasn't done in a journal-type format.  Because of this we weren't able to follow Alex's thoughts and speculations as well.

I did enjoy seeing the events from the first book in setting of a big city.  Pfeffer did a pretty good job of detailing all the things that could go wrong in that type of setting; she thought of some things I hadn't considered.  There are some pretty grisly things that happen in this book, they aren't described in stomach turning detail, but they are there.  Honestly I thought maybe the violence was toned down a bit since this was a young adult book. 

Religion features in this book since it plays a big part in Alex's life.  I am not big on books that feature religion, but for this book it worked well.  In the end it was Alex's involvement with his church (or just with a tight-knit community in general) that really helped his survival.

The book makes you ask questions and think about what you would do in a similar situation.  You can't help but compare the issues with surviving in a rural area (as depicted in the first book) to the issues with surviving in the city.  In general there were easier and harder things about both situations.

Overall this was a solid book and I enjoyed reading it.  It was neat to see the events from the first book, but set in a big city.  This book wasn't quite as good as the first and I think not having it be a journal made it suffer some.  I will definitely be reading the third and final installment, This World We Live In.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- 100+ Reading Challenge

Review - Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (4/5 stars)

Reading level: Young Adult
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic/Science Fiction
Size: 360 pages
Publisher: Graphia
Release Date: May 1, 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0152061548
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Last Survivors trilogy
Source: Audio Book from Audible.com
Rating: 4/5 stars


I have been wanting to read this for a while.  All I really knew about it was that it was supposed to be about the end of the world kind of and supposed to be really good.  It was a very good book and really makes you think about how you would survive in a similar situation.  I listened to this on audio book and the audio book was well done.

Miranda and her family are excited to go out and watch an asteroid hit the moon; there is supposed to be a big flash you can see from earth.  Unfortunately it is then that disaster strikes.  The asteroid is denser than expected and the moon is thrown out of orbit.  The shift in the moon's gravitational pull is having catastrophic effects; there are tsunamis on the coasts, earthquakes everywhere, massive volcanic eruptions, and basically everything that could go wrong with the world is.  Miranda and her family aren't in the thick of things where they live in Pennsylvania but they are living with a gradual decline; power is scarce, food is almost non-existent, and they are isolated from the rest of the country.  Fears about food sources and heat as winter approaches make things more complicated.

This whole book is done as day by day journal entries by Miranda.  The author does an excellent job of showing Miranda's ups and downs as she struggles through the events her and her family are put through.  The author also does an excellent job of showing how Miranda's family's life declines in increments.  There are no huge disasters here, well there are some, but mainly this book shows how the world could go into a slow decline and how people would do their best to survive.  I found it to be a much more realistic take on "the end of the world" than many other books I have read.  There is also a lot of focus on how close Miranda and her family become as they struggle to survive.

This book will really suck you in; it will make you laugh at times and make you cry at others.  You really start to feel like you are part of Miranda's family and are holding your breath to see what they will have to fight through next.  It is definitely not the most uplifting of books and at times is downright depressing.  The author offsets this with occasional positive events and glimpses of hope.  This book will definitely get you thinking about all that you take for granted in day to day life and about how fragile the structure of our information based society is.

There were a couple things that I didn't like about this book.  Midway through it kind of drags.  There is only so much that a reader can read about rationing food and trying to find ways to pass the time before they start to get a bit bored.  So there were a couple parts where I impatiently wanted the story to get on with things.  Also when Miranda is dictating conversations she ends every sentence with "he said", "I said", "she said" and that gets a bit repetitive but is probably representative of how a teenager would write in a journal.

Overall this is a wonderful book that really makes you think about the fragility of human society.  A great take on the collapse of human society caused completely by natural disaster.  It is not a happy book and is pretty depressing, but there are some glimpses of laughter and hope throughout.  It will make you wonder how you would survive a similar situation.  I have not decided if I want to read the next two books in this series or not.  I would like to find out more about what happens to Miranda and her family, but it was a pretty depressing read and I am not sure I need that...especially in the winter.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- The Young Adult Reading Challenge
- The 100+ Book Reading Challenge