The Dead and the Gone
by Susan Pfeffer
Alex is a teenager on the verge of becoming an adult. He is part of an ordinary family living in New York City. He has two younger sisters, and a mother who is a nurse and a father who is away for a family funeral in Puerto Rico. So far so unremarkable, but Susan Pfeffer has chosen to destabilize these people in a most dramatic way. She set her last book, Life as We Knew it, in a world where the moon has been shifted off course by a large asteroid smashing into it. In the spirit of not abandoning a good idea when you've found one she has used the same disaster to inform the life of Alex and his family.
Maybe if I had read the first book I wouldn't have been put off balance by the rapid way we are plunged into the disaster, but I did feel that it all happens too quickly. A bit more scene setting would have made things a lot more convincing, and probably more chilling. I would have liked to see the characters less accepting of what is happening too. It's as if the probability of this disaster has been discussed at some length before the book begins, and people have developed a rather fatalistic attitude.
That said, this is a real page turning thriller, and the descriptions of a city in turmoil are very good. Alex's parents are neatly dispatched, leaving him to cope and care for his sisters in a world becoming more hostile by the day. The family has their religion to help them, and a lot is made of how their schools and church play a large role in keeping things going. But it is how Alex reacts to the challenge that I found most interesting. Pfeffer paints a convincing portrait of a seventeen year old boy trying hard to assume the mantle of manhood before he's really ready.
At times the book is a little clunky, and to my mind it stops rather abruptly, but all in all it is an enormously enjoyable read, and will appeal to many older children, especially I suspect if they read Life as We Knew it first.