Customer Reviews

The Dead and the Gone (The Last Survivors, Book 2)

5 star:		(26)
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3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I have read hundreds of end of the world books in my life, I have read 80% of all zombie books, watched dozens of movies on the end of the world. What I look for in a post apocalyptic book is realism after the disaster. Ironically, I always accept the premise which led to the apocalypse with no question, but am extremely demanding that the characters and the world around them deal with the apocalypse realistically.

Americans have this naive, misplaced, idea that government is generally bad, and the importance of their own individualism. Most American post-apocalyptic fiction reflect this, having the government as either being destroyed immediately, or being incredible inept and making the crisis worse. The Dead and the Gone handles the collapse of society in a more realistic matter, a novelized version of the incredible British "Threads" film (1994).

Consider The Dead and the Gone a prequel and superior novel to "The Road". The Road was incredibly, unflinchingly, realistic, I have never read a book that conveyed such utter realistic hopelessness as The Road. The author was honest to the reader, and never tried to shelter the reader from the Man and the Boy's ultimate fate. But like many post-apocalyptic books, "The Road" was years after the disaster, and as movie critics complained, the Man and the Boy skirted cities so the reader never really truly saw the full hell this family and by extension, the world, went through. The Dead and the Gone vividly shows the death of the world.

I had the privilege to get an advanced reading copy and here is my review.

Last year I read Life As We Knew It by the same author of this wonderful book. You can find the review for that book here. I enjoyed Life As We Knew It so much that when I heard about there being a companion book I jumped with joy. Being a companion book also means you don't have to have read Life As We Knew It to know what is going on. The Dead & the Gone is a completely separate story.
The Dead & the Gone uses the same premise as Life As We Knew It, but takes place in a vastly different environment that creates some truly gruesome challenges for the main characters. Before we were in Pennsylvania away from large bodies of water, away from large cities, and away from practically all the major problems of an urban sprawl. The Dead & the Gone, however, is the exact opposite, taking place in New York City. An asteroid has struck the moon, pushing it into a closer orbit around the Earth and thrusting the Morales family into a grueling struggle for survival. With Alex's parents gone and presumed dead, he has to learn to take care of his younger sisters while keeping his faith in God. But New York City is not an easy place to live in when the electricity rarely works, fuel for stoves is in short supply, and a bitter winter caused by increased volcanic activity thrusts them into extreme cold, famine, and an epidemic.
Once again I feel that Susan has done a fantastic job bringing forward a truly powerful and realistic story about survival. The only thing SF about this story, again, is the impact on the moon, but the world we're presented is a modern world.
The strongest element in this companion novel is a religious element. In Life As We Knew It religion wasn't really a big deal, and in some ways it wasn't even part of the story. For The Dead & the Gone religion is practically everything. Alex is a catholic going to a catholic private school in a family of catholics. He's devout, his younger sister Bri is devout, and his youngest sister is religious, though not nearly as much as her siblings. This has to be stressed in my review because this story is partially a test of faith. How does one hold on to a belief in God when everything around you is falling apart and your prayers aren't being answered? When people start committing suicide or dying on the street and nobody bothers to pick them up and tkae them elsewhere for days, weeks, even months, how do you deal with that belief in God? Even though Alex never does lose his faith, he does battle with doubts and feelings that he feels may be sinful. He must do things that he wouldn't normally do and doesn't feel comfortable doing (such as taking the clothes and personal items off dead bodies in the street to barter for food or stealing from abandoned apartments to do the same).
Alex is a strong character and a character you can't help looking up to. He's charged with taking care of his two sisters practically by himself. Unlike in Life As We Knew It, everything quickly turns to darkness as food becomes incredibly scarce and the bitter winters set in with no way to heat up an apartment that, by default, has no fireplace (I think the quickness of this was somewhat intentional to pull away from the longer feel of the previous book). He has to battle with the decisions he makes every day as he does everything he can just to keep his family alive. It's harsh, it's real, and it's frightening to imagine that anyone would have to go through this. Would any of us survive?
There are some significant diversions beyond location from the previous book. In The Dead & the Gone we see the main character, Alex, get the flu, and have to follow him through the ordeal since he is the central character and the only character whose mind we get into. Susan does a marvelous job presenting a twisted, delusional view through the eyes of someone stricken with illness. The prose becomes disorienting just as the character descends into a myriad of hallucinations and merging of reality and bizarre fantasy. The 'diary' format carries over from the previous book, but here things are split up by day, but the entries are not diary entries, but standard prose entries, which diverges somewhat from the really internal feel and presents more of the grim reality of a New York City fallen from grace.
There are two flaws. The first is the ending, which does leave a little to be desired. Alex has such a hard time getting his sisters out of NYC, but in the end we're led to believe that they must have gotten out. I found myself actually questioning that. What if that plan hadn't worked? What if things failed? Could they be dead now? Perhaps that is what is wanted, and if so, good job, because I'm wondering. To be honest, though, this flaw wasn't that big of a deal. I still loved the book. The other flaw with the book is that for those that have read Life As We Knew It, there isn't a lot of surprise. You know what is going to happen with the moon, you know some of the things that will happen (food shortages, dead, and disease). Granted, some things are different and the way certain elements come into play differ from the first book, but they are the same in a lot of ways. The book, however, is still engaging and certainly a great read. Despite it being 'predictable' in the way I mentioned, it does leave twists and turns you wouldn't expect. People die suddenly and without warning; reliable sources of food suddenly dry up; and illness takes hold.
Regardless, this is one of my favorite books of 2008 already. I fell in love with Life As We Knew It almost instantly, and it was the same here. This book is put together so well that I found myself on the edge of my metaphorical seat (I lay in bed and read). I regret to say that I had to put down the book at one point when something happened that upset me. I mean this in a good way though. Very few books get me so engaged that when someone dies or something bad happens it actually has an effect on me. I think part of me was just upset about what had happened, but I won't ruin that for you, because it would take away the surprise. The pacing is perfect and the dates on the different sections are a great marker of time to keep you in the know. I sincerely hope that Susan continues writing these quasi-SF stories, these real life stories with a slight SF twist.

I read Susan Beth Pfeffer's "The Year Without Michael" quite some time ago, and I remember it being a haunting, if vaguely disturbing story that has no real conclusion. Having read "Life as We Knew It" and its sequel, "The Dead and Gone," I have to say that that seems to be her forte: writing about characters in a slice of time that are dealing with unimaginable events. There's no happy ending to these stories, it's just a brief moment in their lives that show how they cope. In other words, it's a lot like real life.

"The Dead and the Gone" follows 17-year-old Alex in the aftermath of a crazy astronomical event. The moon has been hit by an asteroid that knocks it out of orbit, affecting the tides, the atmosphere, and pretty much the entire environmental balance of the Earth. Alex takes on the responsibility of caring for his two younger teenage sisters while coping with the uncertainty of his parents' fates, food supplies, and the future.

While this could probably be a standalone book, it's more of a compliment to the previous novel set in this future, "Life as We Knew It." Pfeffer assumes you've read the previous book and doesn't set up the moon/asteroid event like she does in the first book. This gives "The Dead and the Gone" a faster-paced feeling, as it starts off with a bang (literally!) and the dramatic events keep unfolding.

The characters in this book are vastly different than the first, which some reviewers don't seem to like. But to me it makes sense - the author is exploring how a worldwide event is affecting people from all walks of life. The "Life as We Knew It" characters aren't especially religious, but Pfeffer chose to sketch a Puerto Rican family that takes faith very seriously in "The Dead and the Gone." Obviously, the world is made up of people from all sorts of backgrounds - so why shouldn't the author take on different types of characters? It might have been interesting if she had chosen to write about characters in another country, instead of basing her two books in the United States. But my overall point is, I think Pfeffer made a great decision in exploring how the same event would affect people with a different worldview.

If you're looking for a happy ending, these are not the books you want to read. They're more character studies in a short period of time, but there is no real conclusion. There's hope at the end, but the story's not really "finished" - kind of like real life.

This is the companion to Life As We Knew It, a YA novel about the struggle to survive in a world crippled by natural disasters. Life As We Knew It was fantastic, so I decided to read this one as well even though I had heard that it wasn't as good.

And the reviews were right; this was a disappointment, especially coming as a follow-up to such a great book. I don't regret the time spent reading it, but it managed to fall a bit flat for me despite containing some pretty horrific goings-on. I think, compared to Life As We Knew It, there were two main reasons that this didn't really work for me. First, I found it much more difficult to relate to the main character. The protagonist of Life As We Knew It is female, middle class, growing up in a suburban lifestyle pretty much the same as I did. The male protagonist in The Dead and the Gone comes from an extremely traditional and religious family, where the man of the house makes all the decisions, to the extent that a teenaged boy left in charge of his family might choose to send his two-years-younger sister off to a convent and not bother telling her until he came to take her from school and put her on the bus. A twelve-year-old girl is expected to do all the cooking and cleaning for her older brother, who has no idea what to do with a box of pasta. Becoming a nun is mentioned as a likely future on more than one occasion. This just isn't my world, and I think the effect of seeing the familiar world crumbling as the novel unfolds is lessened when it wasn't that familiar to begin with.

My other issue is that I really like books where the characters struggle for survival, relying on their ingenuity and so on to get by. This is what I expected to happen here, but throughout most of the book they didn't really have to do anything. Lunches were provided at school and other food handouts were provided once a week, so that starvation never really seemed like it could be an issue until the very end. Likewise, the electricity came on periodically so that they could boil water in the microwave, and the heating oil lasted almost until the end, and the whole survival thing just didn't seem like a lot of work.

And yet, despite all that, I'm still tempted to read the third book in the series when it comes out later this year, so this one can't have been all bad. I definitely recommend Life As We Knew It, anyway; just proceed with caution after that.

I was so into Life as We Knew It, that I expected great things of this companion. I was really very excited to view the disasters through the eyes of a teenager from another part of the country, especially since the character lives in New York City, one of the places hit hardest by the moon disaster. However, I was disappointed by this book. It had me rolling my eyes and exclaiming "Oh, brother" over and over. And yet, somehow, I had to keep reading; I think because Pfeffer's post-apocalyptic world is so intriguing, I wanted to hear more about the world.

Honestly, the main characters seemed to be walking stereotypes of Puerto Ricans - there was stereotypical portrayal of Catholicism and rigid gender roles. It not only seriously annoyed me, but it also made the characters all fall very flat. I understand that the author thought Catholicism was important to a Puerto Rican family, but the use of religion was excessive and not very realistic. Alex's fixation on religion also robbed him of seeming like a normal teenager. I also didn't like how he just accepted things with very little worry, thought, or emotion. He just all of a sudden realizes they don't have much food and they start cutting back and going hungry, which he kind of shrugs off. He also sends his sister away to a convent boarding school so she can have food, and yet there was no desperation leading up to that, which seems weird. He just seemed to do it on a whim.

There really wasn't any action or urgency in this book. I never felt like something bad was going to happen and there were no tense moments. I knew what events were coming because of the first book, and yet Alex still doesn't really experience them. Even though he lives in the city that was said to have been devastated by tidal waves in the other book, he never sees any or really has anything to do with them. I thought New York was supposed to be hit the hardest? I was expecting some extreme suspense, action, and survival here, but apparently Alex lived in a bubble section of NYC.

It was also weird how Alex seemed to not know what was going on when everyone around him did. It wasn't as if the whole city was in a little bubble, just Alex, which seemed wrong since he certainly wasn't clueless or ignorant. I felt like the author relied on us knowing the chronology of the events, because Alex never really spends time thinking about what is going on. Plus, she seems to reuse plot in this book instead of coming up with anything new. It was also strange reading this book in third person after the first was told diary-style. That wasn't a big deal, but still kind of threw me off, and it blocks readers from really getting that first person insight and emotion.

Overall, it was very disappointing. And yet, somehow, I still couldn't put it down? I refused to give up on the series since I really liked the first book and the apocalyptic scenario.

This is the second book in the Last Survivors trilogy. I recently read the first book in the series, Life As We Knew It, and while I finished the book in a state of rather morbid depression, at the same time I couldn't put it down. I had similar expectations of this installment of the series, but unfortunately, I didn't find it as compelling a read.

Alex is a likable enough character. Over the course of the book, Alex is forced to make some hard decisions to care for his remaining family, and sometimes has to do grisly, horrific tasks simply to survive. Through it all, he relies on his devout catholicism to help him keep his strength and wits about him.

One aspect I found particularly jarring, especially in the beginning, is Alex's faith. In the first few chapters I felt I was reading a book on the benefits of catholicism; I don't care to be preached to, and this caused me to get into the book more slowly than I had in Life As We Knew It. Towards the middle of the book, though, the religious parts seemed to taper off, and the ones that were present were more in line with the story and less noticeable.

Of his two sisters, Bri is the calm, sweet one who tries to care for everyone, yet needs the most protection. Julie, the youngest, is the selfish, spoiled baby of the family. I found Julie's development over the course of the tragedy to be the most interesting - she starts out as a terror and trial to Alex, but slowly grows into his biggest ally, someone he can truly depend on.

I'm not sure what to expect of the third book in the series, This World We Live In. I will be reading it because I hate to leave a trilogy unfinished, and I think it will be interesting when the characters from the 1st and 2nd books meet. The series premise itself it puts me in mind of a train wreck: you know it's a disaster, you know it's horrifying, but you just have to look anyway and see what's happened.

If you like light and happy fiction, then this series is probably not for you; however, if you are a fan of science fiction with a twist of gritty realism, you will enjoy it.

This sequel to Life As We Knew It is set in New York City, where seventeen-year-old Alex Morales lives with his parents and two younger sisters. Unlike Miranda and her family and classmates in the first book, Alex is barely aware of the predicted meteor hit and doesn't even realize what has happened until a day later. Things go from bad to worse almost immediately, however, with thousands upon thousands of New Yorkers dead, rioting in the streets, and social services completely obliterated. When Alex's parents disappear, he is forced to struggle by himself to keep his sisters alive, as food dwindles, sickness spreads, and the worst winter he can remember sets in.

I enjoyed this book, almost as much as Life As We Knew It. Maybe "enjoy" isn't quite the right word, as both books make me want to either hide under the bed or run out to the grocery and stock up on canned goods, but that's because they do such an excellent job of evoking the panic and despair of facing such a disaster. There are a lot of similarities between the two books, except that in Alex's story, the disasters are much more immediate (Although for some reason, Pfeffer chooses not to tell Alex's story in diary format, as she did for Miranda, and that adds a bit of distance). In Life As We Knew It, what was especially striking to me was the sense of smothering isolation as Miranda and her family holed themselves up in their house in the country. We heard about all of the disasters happening, but saw them only as they indirectly affected her family. Being set in NYC, Alex's story of course feels much less isolated, and truly life-threatening situations set in much more quickly. On top of that, Alex's family doesn't have the money or the ability to stockpile food that Miranda's did, and so his world and what he must do to survive is pretty different from Miranda's. The images of people being trampled in food riots and of searching dead bodies on the streets for valuables were especially haunting. Another difference between the two stories is the devout Catholic faith of Alex and his family, which holds strong throughout the book despite a lot of understandable questioning and anger at God. I don't remember religion playing a part at all in Miranda's story, and its inclusion here offers another vision of how people might respond to such difficult times.

Overall, a great book. I hear that Pfeffer is writing a third one set several years after the disaster, which apparently will feature at least some of the characters from the first two books. I can't wait to find out how the world will have changed and what has happened to the two families we've followed so far.

Well I'm on page 263 and I can't continue any more. At first I thought it was just because I'm not religious at all but I see others were annoyed with the extreme Catholic view. Maybe this part is just me but Alex isn't that much of a likeable character and I really sympathise with Julie. Some parts of how she was treated (Forced to be the maid, scorned at for not having 'faith', yelled at by her brother, her sister favoured over her) made me seriously wonder if she would commit suicide or run away at some point. Sure, she's 13 and she would be irksome but I didn't think she'd be treated to that extent.

Another thing I didn't like was Julie saying "I hate you!" so much. Once or twice but this was just unrealistic.

The only things that keeps this from being a flat out dud is the gritty point of view of the deaths that happen as a result of the moon in the USA's largest city and that the first chapter of LAWKI is in the end but that's not enough to read it. I've heard that the This World We Live In is even worse so just stick with Life As We Knew It.

Pfeffer continues her post-apocolyptic moon series with a stark urban counterpart to the rural setting of the first. The main character, Alex, is a New York City boy with a large family -- two younger sisters, an older brother in the service and parents who work hard. When the moon shifts his family is dispersed enough that Alex assumes temporary responsibility for his sisters. Now suddenly thrust into the role of primary caretaker his life alters considerably from the future he envisioned. In this way I thought the book took advantage of it's greatest strength -- the characters. An ordinary boy his age, with a pizza parlor job, concentrating on school and the future instantly finds himself with a whole different set of responsibilities than envisioned. That drop of a hat shift in his focus overtook and overwhelmed his life.

The other great strength of this book was that Pfeffer showed us the other side of the coin. In book one we got to see a family struggle through this catastrophic event from a place where things were so geographically dispersed. It was extremely difficult to get news or see neighbors or get to provisions because of the distance between homes and town. In this version it was easier to maintain some level of communication even if the information shared wasn't anything that would necessarily help those struggling with the situation.

What struck me as odd, though, is that I was expecting far more chaos in the streets in this version. We got was far more subdued than I had anticipated it would be in such a circumstance. Don't get me wrong there was the typical (and some creepy not so typical) looting and there was rationing and food bank lines that seemed to stretch for days so it wasn't completely out of synch with my overall expectations; but I suppose I had it in my mind things would be a bit more closer to Stephen King's The Stand where there is violence and car burning in the streets. This softer tone didn't ruin anything for me as a reader it was just different.

This book placed a much greater emphasis on religion and faith than its predecessor. Book one did touch lightly on the religious aspect of an apocolyptic event but was surprisingly low key about it. This book, however, felt like it went a bit further to the extreme to make up for it. Not so much so that it was over the top or unrealistic but it was a noticeable change in tone and was a large part of the story as told. The way faith and religion infused within the story allowed for the theme to branch out in several directions across several characters.

There was much realism to the story told. We saw famine resulting in starvation, crime, debilitating illness, family squabbles, love and loss. We even got to see heroism in the face of extenuating circumstances. Above all there was hope to be had. Though not my favorite of the series thus far, if you enjoyed book one you'll likely enjoy book two as well.

This book starts off kind of awkwardly, with none of this author's signature engaging style of prose. I didn't care for Alex too much at the beginning because he seemed just so annoyingly naive for a 17 year old New Yorker. So, it was a rough start. It didn't take long though before she shows us more of Alex and his sisters, and the reader gets thoroughly hooked into this awful scenario that seems so disturbingly real. I think that's the true genius behind this series of books. Every reader can so easily picture themselves in this situation. Alex becomes everyman and pretty soon you are feeling his terror as he comes face to face with the person he must become in order to survive and protect his sisters.

This family is very devout, so the church plays a large role in this installment of the series. There were some beautiful moments as Alex struggles with and comes to terms with his faith. I think the increased role of the church added an entirely new welcome dimension to this story.

Be forewarned that this story is much more grisly than the first one. Alex has to result to some pretty extreme means to keep food on the table. Some of the images of a New York City overrun with rats, and bodies lying in the streets are very disturbing.

This is a compelling, haunting read that I would recommend to high schoolers and adults with an interest in end of the world tales. This story really takes off after about the first four chapters and doesn't let up till the end. I really look forward to reading the next installment!