This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer

I was lucky to snag an advance reading copy of this book.  I loved the previous two Moon books, so I was anxious to see what happened to Miranda and how she and Alex met.  If you don't know, this series is about life in the world after an asteroid hits the moon, knocking it closer to earth.  The gravitational pull changes, volcanoes erupt, tsunamis wipe out the coasts...it gets bad.  The worst part is that the ash from the volcanoes blocks out the sun.  It gets cold and no one can grow crops.  In this last book of the series, Pfeffer brings her two main characters, Miranda and Alex, together.  Life picks up in Pennsylvania, but eventually Miranda's dad, his wife, a new baby, and three strangers show back up at Miranda's house.  She's glad to see them, but life with all these people now crammed into their house is a little more hectic than it was before.  There are people everywhere, and moreover, they only have food for their family and now it has to be shared.  As Miranda's family grows, she has to deal with all the hardships that come with this new world.  Interestingly though, a real-live teenage boy, Alex, is with the new group, so maybe there's hope that Miranda can have some happiness after all.  This book follows the family as they try to survive in the world they live in.

I really liked this third book.  Honestly, I didn't love it quite as much as the first two, but that could be because I already knew the basics, and this book didn't hold any new moon information.  I liked knowing what happened to the family and seeing what had happened since I left the characters on their own.  What I will say about these books is that they are painful to read but yet so interesting.  I don't know what it is about reading about life like this.  It scares me and makes me wonder if I would survive if something this bad happened.  But it also gives me hope because I know that many people will do what they can to keep being good, strong, honest people even in the face of the worst adversities.  I love this series.  Scary but fun, compelling reads.

the dead & the gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Shop Indie BookstoresI read Life As We Knew it last year and loved it.  the dead & the gone is the companion novel to this one.  it can be read alone or before or after the other book.

Alex Morales is 17 years old and a junior in high school.  He lives in New York and is a good kid.  He's got two little sisters and his parents at home in their basement apartment.  His dad takes care of the apartment building, and Alex's mom just started working as a operation room technician after going back to school to get her education.  Alex is on scholarship at a private Catholic boys school where he is in the student government and on the debate  team.  He works after school at a local pizza joint and helps out his family however he can.  His life isn't the most amazing in the world, but it's good....until....

The meteor hits the moon, knocking the moon closer to earth.

What follows in this book is a day by day account of what happens to Alex and his family once the moon has been hit.  At first no one knows what's going on, but bit by bit Alex starts to realize that life will never be the same.  What's even worse is that after he doesn't hear from either of his parents for a few days, he begins to think he never will.  Will Alex's parents return?  How will he take care of his sisters?  They are ok for a while, but soon food becomes scarce, the sun stops shining, and dead bodies begin to pile up on the city streets of New York.

This book was really interesting because it was different from the first one.  In the first book, Miranda, the main character, was from a small rural Pennsylvania town, and this book shows what happened in the big city.

What I am even more excited about is that the final book in this trilogy This World We Live In, comes out soon this spring.  In this new book, the paths of Miranda and Alex cross and we'll  get to see what the world is like a year from when this all happens.  I'm really wondering if they'll all die or if the scientists will figure out a way to fix the problem or if they'll find new ways to survive.

Both of these books are great, you should pick on up now!