This World We Live In

This World We Live In (The Last Survivors, Book 3) by Susan Beth Pfeffer

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.

Review
I spent Tuesday in turmoil (with bags under my eyes to boot, and it doesn’t help that I’ve been under the weather).  Yet, Tuesday, I got to work exhausted and spent a large part of my work day debating with myself.  The topic: This World We Live In.  Should I go out and buy it or should I wait?  God knows my TBR list reaches up to him, and I had already spent too much on books for the month.  So yes, I debated.

Then after work, I raced to Walmart and bought the book (for $14.87 *grumbles* On Amazon, it is $11.56 right now).

And, damn it, with book in hand, I felt hopeful.  I really did!  Life As We Knew It and The Dead & The Gone ended with hope, so I was desperate to read on and get to Alex and Miranda’s HEA!

So, I raced home and read.  But, I didn’t find a HEA in This World We Live In.  I didn’t find anything.  Only strangers. The characters I grew to love in books 1 & 2 now seemed like total strangers.  *tear* But, I think, maybe that was the point.  And if so, it was brilliantly executed.     

I was glad to return to the story and find it written in the same style as the first book, with Miranda journaling.  The journal entries picked up in pace and were very detailed.  But again, the characters I had longed to reconnected with were almost unrecognizable.  Matt for example, Miranda’s older brother, who I thought of as a hero in book 1, just like she did, because of his sensibilities, his strength, was reckless in this third installment. He went off to go find the family some food and comes back with a wife, which is just an extra mouth to feed.  Agh! And Alex, who worked so hard to keep his sister Julie alive in book 2, becomes so unreasonably stubborn to the point where you feel he must be insane since he thinks it would be a good idea to return Julie to the same convent where his other sister took ill.

Yes, I get that people change, espeically when facing dire circumstances, but these changes where so sudden that it took me a while to accept them (and I’m still struggling to accept them).

But as promised, this book did bring Alex and Miranda together; both 17 years old, both thinking that there would never be anyone to love them, and both just trying to adapt to the way the world has changed.  And, Alex did say some wonderful things to Miranda.  Things that almost every teenaged girl longs to hear from the guy she is completely smitten with:

“You would have been my dream girl,” he said. “Before. Beautiful and smart and funny and kind.”    

“I thanked Christ you were with us, Alex said. “I thanked Him for every hour, every minute, with you.”

“Do you mean that?” I said

“I’m sorry, Miranda,” he said. “I’m not good at loving people. I know you’re supposed to want what’s best for them, but all I want is you.”

So their love blossoms, and although it does seem like it is at the turn of the page, Alex is the ‘Last Living Boy in America’ (as Miranda dubs him) so who could blame her for falling in love with him.  (Why I’m able to accept this for Alex and Miranda and not for Matt baffles even me.  All I can say is that your hero doesn’t marry some roadside floozy. LOL!).

After that, I didn’t really know what decision I was expecting that Miranda would have to make.  Leaving her family with Alex seemed right.  But once the tornado hits and Julie is injured and can no longer walk, it becomes startling clear.  Miranda bears the weight of having to end Julie’s life.  And yes, it is sad, but it didn’t feel like she had a choice.  

Alex returns to the story after being lost for three days after the tornado, which left me wondering if he ever really did return.  Something about that struck me as odd.  And I couldn’t help but think of Sly’s (Matt’s wife) comment to Miranda.  She tells Miranda that if she had a journal, she would lie in it, make things better.  Wouldn’t it be better to believe that Alex did return after being tossed around by a tornado than to never return again?

The book ends with Miranda resolved to never write in her journal again, which I didn’t understand.  I mean, why?  None of it seemed believable.  But then again, maybe that was the point.  Because it was their world, a harsh world in which the moon moved too close to the earth, and they all had to overcome so much just to survive. 

Final note: If you are a fan of Dystopian Fiction, pick up this series! You wont regret it!

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Posted at 10:30 pm  •  Labels: 2010, 3 stars, Apocalyptic/Post Apocalyptic, Book Review, Dystopian Fiction, Susan Beth Pfeffer, YA