The Dead & the Gone (Last Survivors #2) by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Title: The Dead and the Gone (Goodreads)
Author: Susan Beth Pfeffer
Series: Last Survivors #2
Published: June 1, 2008 by Harcourt Children's Books
(236 pages, paperback)
Summary: Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated readers with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event--an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican Alex Morales. When Alex's parents disappear in the aftermath of tidal waves, he must care for his two younger sisters, even as Manhattan becomes a deadly wasteland, and food and aid dwindle.
With haunting themes of family, faith, personal change, and courage, this powerful new novel explores how a young man takes on unimaginable responsibilities.

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My thoughts: The Dead and the Gone is another chilling addition to the haunting Last Survivors series. The writing is done well and I really felt Alex's voice throughout the story. The devastation that spreads throughout New York is scarily what I imagine a world slowly dying would look like. Pfeffer does an excellent job maintaining the dark, terrible aftermath of the apocalypse. There really aren't many novels that deal with the actual apocalypse happening and Pfeffer has a real talent for writing horribly sad happenings while keeping a somewhat hopeful, if distant feel. While the Dead and the Gone wasn't quite as striking as Like As We Know It was, it was still a great novel and a creepy, chilling read.

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This second installment in the series takes place at the same time as the events in the first novel. I really liked seeing how a major, populated city would be affected as opposed to the small town that Miranda lives in. When Alex's parents don't come home after the moon is knocked closer to Earth, things get desperate, and fast. With his two little sisters to take care of, and a lot of responsibility riding on him, Alex responds appropriately. The desperation was more prominent in this novel, and it made the story resonate slightly darker than the first. It was kind of like reading the first book's affects, except on a much more massive scales. Instead of one or two neighbors dying, hundreds of bodies flood the streets, until things get so horrible that the city stops picking them up. With parts both poetic and grotesque, Pfeffer weaves a horrid, enlightening story of what the world would become if disaster on such a large scale occurred.

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Alex was your average teenager when the end of the world happened. Now heaped with grief and forced to grow up much too quickly, he is forced to take care of his family and hold out hope that maybe someday his parents will return. The story line of this book, as I mentioned before, is a lot darker, for a lot of reasons. I found myself crying a lot throughout this book, and therefore, it was more powerful of the two books. Even though Life As We Know It is my favorite in the series, and the better of the two in my opinion, this second book is more emotional and slightly bleaker. I didn't really come to care for the characters as I had in the first book, but the characters were still heartbreakingly realistic and well-written. Maybe it was all of the destruction caused by the huge population in New York, as opposed to a small, sparsely populated town, but the Dead and the Gone was a lot like its name; bleak and blunt. In a good way, but still.

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Overall, the Dead and the Gone is a great apocalyptic read. It was realistic, heartbreaking, and serious. It made me think a lot, about how short life is and how our safety can be so quickly and so easily taken away. It also had me making sure we had plenty of canned food and blankets. These books really make you think, and they're really scarily realistic. Definitelly books that should be read at night. And those covers are just chilling. One of my only complaints was that everything was so horrible and bleak at points, that the story seemed like it wasn't going anywhere. But the shocking scenes with the unexpected death and destruction--wow. They made up for the lulls. I just hope the series will hold up the feel of the first two books.

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Cover: 5/5

Characters: 3/5

Plot: 5/5

Writing: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4 stars

Life As We Know It (Last Survivors #1) by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
360 pages, Paperback
Published on May 1, 2008
Summary: Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the moon closer to the earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic winter, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.
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Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda's struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.
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Overview: Miranda Day is your average teenage girl. She lives in a small, close-knit community in Pennsylvania. And a meteor is about to hit the moon. Now, from that quick assessment, you've basically got the basis of this apocalyptic novel. And overall, the book was easy to follow, with the apocalypse scenario scarily realistic. It was intense and dark without getting to disturbing or depressing. Pfeffer's writing is smooth and feels like a teenage girl. Miranda was a good protagonist, even if she was a little despairing. My favorite part of this novel had to be the way the moon was described. I've always loved looking through telescopes and watching the moon up-close, and the theory that the moon could one day be so near that it overshadows everything, day and night, was eerie in just the right way. This novel was definitely fast-paced, without too much backstory to cloud Miranda's diary with her past unrealistically. It's a tough job sounding like a teenage girl and especially in providing her past without making it overly obvious that the author is trying to make readers sympathize with the protagonist. Pfeffer does a wonderful job of creating a world racked with unnatural scenarios and filled with death and destruction. 
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Miranda was an easily likable girl thrust into strange circumstances. Through it all, she seemed real, not filled with bravado or a false sense of security. I feel that it would have been all too easy for Pfeffer to make her a hero, someone willing to sacrifice herself for her family. But she doesn't. And still somehow she comes out seeming like a real-life teenager, not really selfish or selfless. She has faults and makes horrifying mistakes, but I still liked her through it all. Miranda's mom was also a great character. She was sweet and caring and had real emotions without seeming like an overprotective, paranoid mother. My favorite character was Matt, her older brother, because he always seemed to know exactly how to react to the strange events in this novel. Johnny, her younger brother, was cute and I loved him too, because he was the lightness this novel sometimes lacked. My grievance: Miranda sometimes acted childish and selfish in the worst way, which sometimes made me mad. Also, Miranda's religious friend, Megan, was met with a terrible end and I would've liked to see the priest who caused her death punished at least a little.
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The hole apocalyptic theme was well-done. It was eerie and scary and dark without seeming overwhelming or completely hopeless. Pfeffer did her research and it showed. Miranda's story was well-crafted, with every scene more gripping than the last. I loved the dream like scene where Miranda ice-skates with her idol, even though it brought a sense of lonesomeness into the story. Her brief but passionate romance with Dan was cute but a little too easy to me. Even though the tragedy can get a little overboard at times, it all held an air of reality; it wasn't so sad that nothing good ever happened, but it was sad enough that it felt like the end of the world. A problem I had with it was the ending when everyone gets the flu; (spoiler) it seemed a bit too contrived that all of them survived, even if it was by strange coincidences. I'm not sadistic, but it just seemed like a twist that didn't really need to be there. Lastly, I loved the last few pages. For the sake of not spoiling everything, I'll just say it was uplifting and left me with a tear in my eye and a hope that maybe all wasn't as dire as it previously seemed.
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The writing wasn't exactly a strong point, but it served its purpose. I was impressed by the way Pfeffer delivered Miranda's diary entries, since sometimes it seems like writers push the characters into writing diaries so that they seemed unrealistic or forced. Miranda's entries felt real, for the most part. Sometimes, though, Pfeffer's writing seemed mature beyond Miranda's years. While, yes, Miranda was forced to grow up within a few short months, years before she normally would've, it also seemed like halfway through, she gained a perspective that wasn't as realistic. That being said, I liked how Miranda sometimes got mad and wrote angry entries, or depressed entries, or happy entries. They reflected well how Miranda felt, like an actual diary might.
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Cover: 5 stars
Characters: 4 stars
Plot: 4.5 stars
Writing: 3.5 stars
Overall: 4 stars