Book Addiction

The Dead and the Gone - Susan Beth Pfeffer

pub. 2008, 308 pgs.

From the book jacket -

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 to senior class president and making the grades to land him in a good college.  He 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.

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life As We Knew It enthralled and devestated readers with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event from a small-town perspective.  Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of a seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican New Yorker.  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.

With haunting themes of family, faith, personal change, and courage, this powerful novel explores how a young man takes on unimaginable responsibilities.

My thoughts -

While this novel is about the same events as was Life As We Knew It, The Dead and the Gone is a much different book.  It is darker, scarier, and feels more real.  Even though I really enjoyed the first one, I have to say that I think this companion is even better.  Even though it is a lot more haunting and troubling, I think it follows more closely what would actually happen if something like this did occur in real life.  Something I really liked about this book that wasn’t present in the first one is Pfeffer’s discussion of class.  The Morales family lived in an apartment building that the father maintained, but because Alex had received some sort of scholarship (I think), he went to a private Catholic high school, so the majority of his friends had plenty of money.  Therefore, many of the people he knew had no problem getting out of New York (it was stated quite explicitly that money and connections can get you anywhere), while Alex and his sisters were forced to stay behind.  Class differences aren’t often mentioned in fiction, and I definitely think that if this nightmare were to happen in real life, class differences would make a HUGE difference in whether you lived or died.  So it was nice to see Pfeffer recognize something like that.

Another blogger mentioned that he/she (can’t remember who it was…) felt that the overall premise of these two books was somewhat lacking because if this were to happen in real life, most likely some scientist somewhere would have predicted that an asteroid hitting the moon would have consequences for the earth, and precautions would have been taken before the catastrophe could occur.  I do think that blogger is correct, so I was somewhat bugged by that while reading this book, but I forced myself not to think about it and just focus on the story.  Awesome story, somewhat shaky premise, excellent writing, great characters… overall a really solid book, one that I’m happy to recommend.

8.5 stars.

Also reviewed by Becky at Becky’s Book Reviews.

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

From the book jacket -

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 the worst is yet to come.

Told in Miranda’s diary entries, this is a heart-pounding account of her struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all - hope - in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar time.

My thoughts -

This was an extremely powerful book to me.  Pfeffer is an amazing novelist, and she makes the whole situation seem so incredibly, frighteningly real that your mind really begins to wonder if this could happen to us, and if so, how would we survive?… Would we survive at all?  And that reality, that terrifying thought that the whole premise of the bookcould actually happen, makes it such an intriguing and fast-paced read.  I truly couldn’t put this book down, I NEEDED to know what was going to happen to Miranda and her family, I needed to know that they were going to make it through and that eventually the world would begin to stabilize again.  I especially enjoy the way Pfeffer wrote the characters, I really ended up caring about all of them and hoping so badly that they would all be ok in the end.  I’m so glad I found this book at the library and I heard somewhere that there is a sequel, which I’d absolutely love to read.  Anyone know the title of the sequel?

9 stars.

Read Darcie’s review here, Amanda’s review here, Suey’s review here, Joy’s review here, and Chelsea’s review here. (any other reviews? Just let me know!)

 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

From the back cover -

The system was simple.  Everyone  understood it.  Books were for burning, along with the houses in which they were hidden.  Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires.  And he enjoyed his job.  He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames… never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid.  Then guy met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think.  And Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do…

My thoughts -

So I did not enjoy this book nearly as much as I had anticipated.  The only dystopian novel I have ever read before this is 1984 and since I really loved that, I just assumed I’d love this too.  But the two books are really nothing alike, and I just was not excited about this book one bit.  I sort of got into the story in the beginning, when I was figuring out exactly how things worked in this sad future world, and I did perk up a lot when Montag started fighting the system toward the end, but the whole middle just did not do it for me at all.  I don’t know, it’s probably just me because I’ve heard so many great things about this “classic” novel, but personally I was just not too into it.  I did finish the book, however, so that says something good about it as I am not afraid to put down a book that I simply dislike.  So because I finished the book and did get emotionally involved in some parts, I’ll give Fahrenheit 451 a rating of 65/100.

And in other good news, this is book 1 of my TBR challenge list, so only 11 to go on that challenge!