The Dead & The Gone

Earlier today I reviewed Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer.  As promised, I have a review for book number 2 in The Last Survivors trilogy, The Dead & The Gone.

The Last Survivors trilogy by Susan Beth Pfeffer is a dystopian trilogy about an asteroid hitting the moon and sending it closer in orbit to the earth and the horrendous conditions that follow.  In Life As We Knew It the reader was transported to rural Pennsylvania and followed Miranda as she journals her way through the terrors that followed after the moon was knocked closer to the earth.  It was a great story and it totally sucked me in, but it did leave the question of what happened in the city?  The Dead & The Gone is the answer.  In this installment, we meet Alex and his 2 younger sisters.  His mother is gone and his father is in Puerto Rico, likely dead.  Alex lives in New York City and when the moon is pushed closer to earth, tragedy falls on the City.

Left with only his strong faith, his younger sisters Bri and Julie, hope and a trust in God, Alex must find a way to survive the harsh reality of the world seemingly coming to an end.  At first things seem okay- Mami was called off to work and Papi was in Puerto Rico.  But quickly the reality sinks in... Mami probably never made it work because of subway flooding, and Puerto Rico was hit hard by massive tidal waves and Papi was on the coast.  Their brother Carlos is in the Marines, and while they did hear from him in the beginning, they never heard from him again and who knows where he went.  The City is definitely trying to function on some sort of a normal level- schools have stayed open and the churches are open as well.  Alex is able to get around and find food to keep his sisters alive, but the longer they stay in The City the clearer it becomes that there is a big divide between the haves and the have nots.  If you're "somebody", you know you will be fed and you will be getting out of NYC and going to an elite camp in the South.  But if you aren't a big name with a large price tag attached, you're either staying in The City to die a horrible death or being transported to an evca center a few hours upstate in Binghamton.  Alex has people who care for him with a lot of friends in high places, but he is still a have not and his fate seems to be sealed.  Will he be able to save his sisters and leave The City, or will they fall prey to the weather, disease and lack of food?

I quite enjoyed this installment in The Last Survivors trilogy.  Like Life As We Knew It, I was immediately pulled in to the story.  I knew what to expect from the changes in the weather, but I didn't know how it would pan out in the City.  It was a totally different world with similar tragedies, but also an entire new breed of horrifying circumstances.

I also gotta say that I was totally in love with the fact that so far I pretty much know everywhere Susan Beth Pfeffer has placed her novels.  I know the City {not as well as I'd like, but I'm not far away!} and I know the general area around where Miranda lived in Howell, PA {it isn't too far from Mechanicsburg}, and I clearly know where the evac center from The Dead & The Gone was, since my address is Binghamton, NY and has been for 23 years of my life.  Plus, throughout both books she mentioned a lot of places that I know.  I just hope that in This World We Live In I get to visit some more local places that have suffered doom and gloom.

While I wanted to read at least all 3 of Susan Beth Pfeffers books for the YA Dystopian Challenge, I only finished 2- but hey, that still met Level 2 and means I completed the challenge!  YaY!  I'll read This World We Live In this week and review it.. just not in time for the YAD2 challenge.  I really liked this challenge and have loved reading other reviews and finding more great YA Dystopian novels- big thanks to Bart's Bookshelf for hosting YAD2!

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