The Dead And The Gone

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.

My Review :

The Dead And The Gone scared me.. I am serious.It did. Life As We Knew It did that too but the proportion with which this book got me was higher.Set in a metropolitan it gave a sense of what might happen if this scenario arose in future. Apocalyptic novels were never my favorite genre but for this book I make an exception.

Susan Beth Pfeffer makes us realise how ill-equipped we are mentally and resource wise to handle a calamity of this proportion. It was difficult at times to read on. I must have stopped at least 15 times in the course of entire book because it was a painful. Miranda in the first book had similar issues but it was visited in a manner I thought kept us away from the real happenings. Focus was more on her thoughts,but here reality hits directly in the face.

Alex our protagonist is smart , he is resourceful but is that enough? Can he provide for his sisters when the moral values and ethics have gone off the face of earth .When people are plundering dead bodies for money and jewelery to get food in exchange. Can he survive in this world which doesn’t resemble even remotely to the world he remembers having lived in ?

Is that how we are going to survive if such a thing happens?

If you have read the first book then this is a must read for you..If you haven’t, then grab both the books and read them.

Highly Recommended

My Rating : 5 out of 5

Quick Review : Journey To The Center Of The Earth

Book : Journey To The Center Of The Earth by Jules Verne

Category : Classic , Science Fiction

Protagonist : Otto Lidenbrock

Summary of the book from Good Reads

As irascible scholar Professor Lidenbrock pores over a rare Icelandic tome, he discovers a scrap of parchment with cryptic writing tucked away between the ancient pages. And when his nephew, Axel, finally breaks the writing’s secret code, he learns of a hidden underground passageway that may lead deep into the center of the earth.

Despite Axel’s misgivings, he and the obsessed Lidenbrock travel to Iceland and, with a guide named Hans, set out on a perilous expedition in the course of which the trio will encounter an extraordinary new world of extinct yet living species, an underground sea, and gigantic, battling monsters.

Things I liked about this book:

This book was published in 1864 and the forward thinking Jules Verne conceptualised a plot that continues to enthrall readers of all age even to this day. It is a perfect balance of science and fiction . The fictionalization has been in everyplace accounted with facts that can at least partly explain the occurence. Writing this stuff in 1800 itself makes me wonder what kind of imagination Verne must have had.

The excitement is never-ending in this book. The well placed obstacles make it a fun reading as well as keep the story moving.

Most importantly, it was the book I read as a kid in form of Illustrated Classic. It was my first book in that series and has always remained a favourite. I really wanted to read the unabridged form but never got a chance until I landed up participating in the Classics Challenge 🙂

This is the cover of my Illustrated Classic version of the book  [Googled for the image 🙂 ]

Things I disliked about the book : None

On my rating scale :4 out of 5

Challenges for which the book is listed : Classics Challenge 2009

Fill In The Gaps 100 Project

Quick Review – Life As We Knew It

Book: Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Category : Science Fiction , Young Adult

Protagonists : Miranda

Summary of the book : When a meteor collision on the surface of the moon puts it in an orbit closer to earth, life on earth is never the same again. The shift in the moon’s orbit leads to catastrophic calamities on earth. Miranda,our narrator through her journal entries gives a peek into her life during that period starting from a time when everything was normal .A carefree  teenager  gets transformed into a struggler for survival against nature’s fury. Everyday brings forth new problems ,those of food shortage , health issues and depression. A story of how a single event can turn our life upside down , the unpreparedness and how will people cope with it forms the crux of this wonderfully written book.

Things I liked about this book:

The style of writing in form journal entries. Reading it in a different form would have just been like an account of what calamities occurred and who died and description of all that, thus making it a more difficult read. But this style  gives us a look in to this teenager’s mind .A mind full of doubts and questions. Doubt as to whether they will have a tomorrow or is this the last daylight . A mind that should have been preoccupied with high school gossip, boys, dresses .A mind which is now  forced to think of saving food so that they have enough for the days to come.Miranda’s transformation is seen as you reach her final entries.She is more mature , she more determined and most importantly she is more hopeful .Hopeful of a life in these difficult times.
Things I disliked about the book :

I can’t say I disliked anything  in it but it did scare me a little . I have always been scared of watching  movies like Deep Impact and Armageddon . Good thing about this book was that , it was  more about Miranda’s  survival rather than the meteor strike or the calamities. The collision was used as an instrument to tell us their story.

On my rating scale : 4.5 out of 5

I must thank Tricia for bringing this book to my notice by her wonderful review.

Challenges for which the book is listed : None

Source : Library