FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. A year after a catastrophic meteor strike on the moon changed Earth's climate, Miranda struggles to survive in a frozen world where nearly everyone she knows has died.
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Product Description
It's been a year since a meteor collided with the moon, catastrophically altering the earth's climate. For Miranda Evans, life as she knew it no longer exists. Her friends and neighbors are dead, the landscape is frozen, and food is increasingly scarce. The struggle to survive intensifies when Miranda's father and stepmother arrive with a baby and three strangers in tow. One of the newcomers is Alex Morales, and as Miranda's complicated feelings for him turn to love, his plans for his future thwart their relationship. Then a devastating tornado hits the town of Howell, and Miranda makes a decision that will change their lives forever.
I love you.
No, I really do. I have loved you since the first of the Last Survivors trilogy, Life As We Knew It, was published. It was then that I began monitoring (such a nice euphemism for stalking) my Amazon ranking. I cheered when it dipped below 20,000 for the first time. I marveled when it landed at 7,777 and 6,666. When, for one glorious moment, it was in the extremely high three digits, I wrote an entire celebratory blog entry. I went through the same emotional extremes when the second volume, The Dead & The Gone, came out. When its Amazon ranking was lower than Life As We Knew It, I felt that same trill of excitement that I experienced when kid sister Serena beat Venus Williams for the first time. Now the trilogy is complete, with the publication of This World We Live In. I celebrated on July 13, 2009, at 4:06 p.m., when it debuted at 271,527. Each morning and afternoon and evening and night and occasionally at tea time, I check on all three books. It's like the Milwaukee Brewers Sausage Race. Now in first place is Life As We Knew It at 2,911, but fast on its heels is the up-and-comer This World We Live In at 2,983. Falling back to third place is The Dead & The Gone, at 3,240, from its midafternoon high of 2,829. Yes, dear Amazon reader, I love you. But could you please do something about my 1993 novel, The Ring of Truth? It's feeling very lonely at 5,235,538!
It's been a year since a meteor collided with the moon, catastrophically altering the earth's climate. For Miranda Evans, life as she knew it no longer exists. Her friends and neighbors are dead, the landscape is frozen, and food is increasingly scarce. The struggle to survive intensifies when Miranda's father and stepmother arrive with a baby and three strangers in tow. One of the newcomers is Alex Morales, and as Miranda's complicated feelings for him turn to love, his plans for his future thwart their relationship. Then a devastating tornado hits the town of Howell, and Miranda makes a decision that will change their lives forever.
Amazon Exclusive: A Letter from Susan Beth Pfeffer, Author of This World We Live In
Dear Amazon reader, I love you.No, I really do. I have loved you since the first of the Last Survivors trilogy, Life As We Knew It, was published. It was then that I began monitoring (such a nice euphemism for stalking) my Amazon ranking. I cheered when it dipped below 20,000 for the first time. I marveled when it landed at 7,777 and 6,666. When, for one glorious moment, it was in the extremely high three digits, I wrote an entire celebratory blog entry. I went through the same emotional extremes when the second volume, The Dead & The Gone, came out. When its Amazon ranking was lower than Life As We Knew It, I felt that same trill of excitement that I experienced when kid sister Serena beat Venus Williams for the first time. Now the trilogy is complete, with the publication of This World We Live In. I celebrated on July 13, 2009, at 4:06 p.m., when it debuted at 271,527. Each morning and afternoon and evening and night and occasionally at tea time, I check on all three books. It's like the Milwaukee Brewers Sausage Race. Now in first place is Life As We Knew It at 2,911, but fast on its heels is the up-and-comer This World We Live In at 2,983. Falling back to third place is The Dead & The Gone, at 3,240, from its midafternoon high of 2,829. Yes, dear Amazon reader, I love you. But could you please do something about my 1993 novel, The Ring of Truth? It's feeling very lonely at 5,235,538!
Best,
Susan Beth Pfeffer
(Photo © Marci Hanners)
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up—This companion to Life As We Knew It (2006) and The Dead and the Gone (2008, both Harcourt) brings together the teen protagonists of those books when Miranda Evans's father and stepmother arrive with their new baby and a trio of strangers, including Alex Morales. For the past year, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother have been living in the family home in Howell, PA, struggling to survive since an asteroid hit the Moon, destroying the Earth's climate and causing millions to die. Deeply religious, Alex is determined to see his younger sister, Julie, safely to a convent before joining a monastery himself. When Miranda and Alex fall in love, she tries to persuade him to stay with her. Then a tornado hits Howell with tragic consequences, and Miranda must make a choice that may drive Alex away forever. As the narrator, Miranda dominates the book, but both she and Alex are sympathetic characters with her independence a nice complement to his sense of honor. Characters such as Miranda's brothers, parents, and Julie play less of a role but are still likable and fully three-dimensional. It is a testament to the author's skill that This World We Live In can be read as a stand-alone novel. In fact, new readers might not even realize that the earlier titles exist. Fans of Miranda and Alex, however, will keep this installment flying off the shelves, and the ambiguous ending will make them clamor for a fourth book.—Leah J. Sparks, formerly at Bowie Public Library, MD
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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More About the Author
SUSAN BETH PFEFFER is the author of many books for teens, including Life As We Knew It and the bestselling novel The Year Without Michael. She lives in Middletown, New York.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
THIS WORLD WE LIVE IN is not the follow-up to LIFE AS WE KNEW IT that I was hoping for.
I think the root of the problem is that the diary format just doesn't work for this installment. In book one, it was interesting enough to follow Miranda's personal journey via her written thoughts. She goes from a girl who has the whole world open to her to a girl trapped in a dark, cold room with only her starving family (and, yes, the family cat). However, this time around, Miranda's character arc is so scant that it can't sustain 300 pages of her whining.
The diary format also makes the creation of sympathetic, three-dimensional supporting characters difficult. I do recall caring about the fate of Miranda's family in the first book, but here all we see through Miranda's eyes is mom being an agoraphobic shrew, older brother Matt being a selfish jerk, and everyone else just existing.
The romance between Miranda and Alex (the "hero" of book 2) is dead in the water. These two have so little chemistry together, I cringed when they touched. And c'mon Miranda - I know you don't have a lot of options for romance, but Alex is NOT boyfriend material. He wants to be monk. He's super controlling and stubborn. And he's obsessed with his sister. (Good at finding food though. I'll give him that.)
And what's up with everyone just moping around the entire novel until a tragic event (in the last 20 pages) forces them into action? Why couldn't we have gotten more exploration of the "safe town" idea for instance?
Unless you are just really in love with the characters and world of LIFE AS WE KNEW IT, I'd probably recommended putting this one near the bottom of your reading pile.
I think the root of the problem is that the diary format just doesn't work for this installment. In book one, it was interesting enough to follow Miranda's personal journey via her written thoughts. She goes from a girl who has the whole world open to her to a girl trapped in a dark, cold room with only her starving family (and, yes, the family cat). However, this time around, Miranda's character arc is so scant that it can't sustain 300 pages of her whining.
The diary format also makes the creation of sympathetic, three-dimensional supporting characters difficult. I do recall caring about the fate of Miranda's family in the first book, but here all we see through Miranda's eyes is mom being an agoraphobic shrew, older brother Matt being a selfish jerk, and everyone else just existing.
The romance between Miranda and Alex (the "hero" of book 2) is dead in the water. These two have so little chemistry together, I cringed when they touched. And c'mon Miranda - I know you don't have a lot of options for romance, but Alex is NOT boyfriend material. He wants to be monk. He's super controlling and stubborn. And he's obsessed with his sister. (Good at finding food though. I'll give him that.)
And what's up with everyone just moping around the entire novel until a tragic event (in the last 20 pages) forces them into action? Why couldn't we have gotten more exploration of the "safe town" idea for instance?
Unless you are just really in love with the characters and world of LIFE AS WE KNEW IT, I'd probably recommended putting this one near the bottom of your reading pile.
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I was really excited to be offered this novel for review having read both Life As We Knew It and The Dead and the Gone (The Last Survivors, Book 2) as soon as they were released. I was very disappointed in this book and found it unsatisfying. Not so much a conclusion as just another part of a series that should have ended with this third book.
I love an apocalyptic novel. I had really liked the first one I read, Life As We Knew It, and although slightly unimpressed with the companion novel, The Dead and the Gone, I did hope for some sort of culmination as the characters from both books met up and interacted in Howell. In the first place, there really isn't much backstory so unless you've read both prior books you will be somewhat lost as this third story begins.
Miranda and Alex and their families try to forge a sort of existence in Howell a year after the meteor collided with the moon. Their continuing struggle for food and survival fills page after page of this book. All try to be hopeful about an uncertain future and each makes choices and decisions that alter the course of their existence. Yet another calamity occurs toward the end of this book and it seems that the band of remaining survivors will move on to find a more suitable place to live.
All in all the book left me unsatisfied and irritated. I can see room for yet another in the series and am disappointed about that. I doubt I will read the next book. This series was called "action-packed, thrilling and utterly terrifying" but I think that each successive book lost those characteristics.
Borrow, don't buy.
I love an apocalyptic novel. I had really liked the first one I read, Life As We Knew It, and although slightly unimpressed with the companion novel, The Dead and the Gone, I did hope for some sort of culmination as the characters from both books met up and interacted in Howell. In the first place, there really isn't much backstory so unless you've read both prior books you will be somewhat lost as this third story begins.
Miranda and Alex and their families try to forge a sort of existence in Howell a year after the meteor collided with the moon. Their continuing struggle for food and survival fills page after page of this book. All try to be hopeful about an uncertain future and each makes choices and decisions that alter the course of their existence. Yet another calamity occurs toward the end of this book and it seems that the band of remaining survivors will move on to find a more suitable place to live.
All in all the book left me unsatisfied and irritated. I can see room for yet another in the series and am disappointed about that. I doubt I will read the next book. This series was called "action-packed, thrilling and utterly terrifying" but I think that each successive book lost those characteristics.
Borrow, don't buy.
18 of 21 people found the following review helpful
By S. Duke
Format:Hardcover
The third book in Susan Beth Pfeffer's series of young adult post-disaster novels, This World We Live In attempts the daunting task of bringing together characters from the previous books (Life As We Knew It and The Dead and the Gone). At that task, it succeeds with flying colors and provides another character-driven novel in world gone horribly wrong.
Miranda and her family have survived the worst after the moon was knocked into a closer orbit around the Earth by a meteor, but they're not out of the woods yet. Food is scarce, electricity is on-again-off-again at random, and the sudden arrival of Miranda's father and stepmother, and a few unexpected guests, is making things more difficult. But with these new guests is Alex Morales (The Dead and the Gone), and soon Miranda and Alex find themselves in conflict with their growing feelings for one another and the harsh reality that is their future in a world brought to its knees by nature.
Much like Life As We Knew It and The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In captures the essence of family in all the right ways. Miranda's family is an amalgam of the kinds of families we see in the world today (here in the West, anyway): we have the divorced parents, the stepmother, the turmoil between brothers and a daughter in a world no longer founded upon the same equal opportunity we take for granted today, the injection of other people into the social stratum of the family unit (much as friends become members of the family, even though they aren't). Pfeffer continues to make family, social structures, and character the central focus of her novel, despite being set in an future where one could have a heyday with action and violence. Her characters are (still) flawed, and yet lovable regardless. We might not like the way they all act from time to time, but throughout the narrative (and the series as a whole) we come to understand how humanity often needs copious amounts of time to properly adjust to a catastrophic event.
In a way, I can't help seeing the analogy between the Great Depression and Pfeffer's out-of-place-moon future, where mankind is thrust into awful situations where even those who were moderately fortunate before are forced to change against strict, horrible social/cultural/physical pressures. Perhaps that is what makes This World We Live In, and the previous two novels, engaging and real. It's not Doomsday or I Am Legend, but an unintentional response to that kind of action-focused post-disaster genre--a response that seems to work without becoming preachy or too geared towards a particular gender or age group (even though it is a young adult novel).
The epistolary format continues to work surprisingly well, the characters are surprisingly human (they irritate, they amuse, and they make good and bad decisions), and the ambiguity of the ending is both a warm, if not morbid, moment, and a reminder of our fragility as a species. Hopefully Pfeffer will show us more of this world, either through the eyes of her previously established characters, or via the introduction of new characters from entirely different situations (it would be interesting, for example, to see how the richest people of the world are coping with the "end of the world"). We'll see.
The only recommendation I have for anyone interested in this novel (besides the obvious suggestion of picking it up and reading it) is not to read the back cover. This may be isolated to the uncorrected proof I received for review, but the synopsis on the back cover of my edition essentially gives away the ending. Don't read it.
Miranda and her family have survived the worst after the moon was knocked into a closer orbit around the Earth by a meteor, but they're not out of the woods yet. Food is scarce, electricity is on-again-off-again at random, and the sudden arrival of Miranda's father and stepmother, and a few unexpected guests, is making things more difficult. But with these new guests is Alex Morales (The Dead and the Gone), and soon Miranda and Alex find themselves in conflict with their growing feelings for one another and the harsh reality that is their future in a world brought to its knees by nature.
Much like Life As We Knew It and The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In captures the essence of family in all the right ways. Miranda's family is an amalgam of the kinds of families we see in the world today (here in the West, anyway): we have the divorced parents, the stepmother, the turmoil between brothers and a daughter in a world no longer founded upon the same equal opportunity we take for granted today, the injection of other people into the social stratum of the family unit (much as friends become members of the family, even though they aren't). Pfeffer continues to make family, social structures, and character the central focus of her novel, despite being set in an future where one could have a heyday with action and violence. Her characters are (still) flawed, and yet lovable regardless. We might not like the way they all act from time to time, but throughout the narrative (and the series as a whole) we come to understand how humanity often needs copious amounts of time to properly adjust to a catastrophic event.
In a way, I can't help seeing the analogy between the Great Depression and Pfeffer's out-of-place-moon future, where mankind is thrust into awful situations where even those who were moderately fortunate before are forced to change against strict, horrible social/cultural/physical pressures. Perhaps that is what makes This World We Live In, and the previous two novels, engaging and real. It's not Doomsday or I Am Legend, but an unintentional response to that kind of action-focused post-disaster genre--a response that seems to work without becoming preachy or too geared towards a particular gender or age group (even though it is a young adult novel).
The epistolary format continues to work surprisingly well, the characters are surprisingly human (they irritate, they amuse, and they make good and bad decisions), and the ambiguity of the ending is both a warm, if not morbid, moment, and a reminder of our fragility as a species. Hopefully Pfeffer will show us more of this world, either through the eyes of her previously established characters, or via the introduction of new characters from entirely different situations (it would be interesting, for example, to see how the richest people of the world are coping with the "end of the world"). We'll see.
The only recommendation I have for anyone interested in this novel (besides the obvious suggestion of picking it up and reading it) is not to read the back cover. This may be isolated to the uncorrected proof I received for review, but the synopsis on the back cover of my edition essentially gives away the ending. Don't read it.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
will read the next
i have enjoyed this series. Great characters but i was disappointed in the ending of this one. Perhaps that will turn for the better in the next one and yes i have preordered it.
Published 5 days ago by Dixie Eves
4.0 out of 5 stars
The World We Live In
I've read all of the books in this series and I am looking forward to the next one which I believe is due to come out in August. Read more
Published 9 days ago by Pat Binger
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very realistic
This is how I would picture my family trying to survive an end of the world situation. The individuals struggles help you really relate to the characters. Read more
Published 11 days ago by Lauren
2.0 out of 5 stars
I hope the fourth book is better
I recently learned of the upcoming release of The Shade of the Moon, and since I loved the first two books in the trilogy, I've already pre-ordered it. Read more
Published 17 days ago by Sunny Dae
1.0 out of 5 stars
Just. Plain. Bad.
I have now read all three books in the "Life as We Knew It" series, and I can say definitively, they just keep getting worse. I wonder how bad the 4th book will be? Read more
Published 17 days ago by Goodwife Weaver
5.0 out of 5 stars
very good book
My sis send me this books,cus there is three parts to it. She said you gots to read the books,they are good books. I wan`t a reader at the time. I could never get into a book. Read more
Published 27 days ago by melda
5.0 out of 5 stars
Riveting! I couldn't put it down!
I came across this series after I read the Hunger Games. As much as I love the Hunger Games, I've re-read each of these books at least three more times. Read more
Published 28 days ago by Lisa Gilmore
3.0 out of 5 stars
Decent follow up but lacking
Following another family after the moon disaster (follow up to Life as We Knew It), Pfeffer gives us a look at what life was like in a major city as compared to a smaller town... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Ann Britzke
4.0 out of 5 stars
This World We Live In
This World We Live In: Life As We Knew It Series, Book 3 In book 3 of Susan Beth Pfeffer's "The Last Survivors" series, characters from "Life as We Knew It" and "The Dead and the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Marcie Hoye Cumberland
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Scattered Storyline
Well written with believable characters and events. I was vested in each character - except for Alex. I didn't like him. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Rhonda Alterson
