Susan Beth Pfeffer
Picture a world where life is no longer as we know it, but instead, due to a catastrophic collision our moon has created a blah, grey world of lifelessness, death and uncertainty. This is the scene that Susan Beth Pfeffer portrays in The Dead and The Gone, Life As We Knew It, and This World We Live In, the third book of her series.
This World We Live In tells the story of Miranda, a young girl whose family is trying to survive in the disastrous aftereffects of a global catastrophe a year after it happened. Miranda’s family has to learn to work together, accept life as it now is, to love and persevere at all costs, even in death. They also learn along the way that family is not always who is related by blood, but instead who is brought into your life in times of struggle, for reasons beyond our own knowledge.
I really enjoyed reading this story, as it kept me captivated throughout. The wonder of how this family would survive through the changes in weather, what they would find as time passed on, and how they were going to make it through after such harrowing circumstances made me to not want to put this book down. It left me wondering what if the world was to suffer a catastrophe, how would we survive? Would I be as strong as Miranda and her family? I can only hope that I would indeed have as much courage and faith as the family portrayed in this book.
This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer will be available around April 1, 2010 through Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishers, retailing, in hardback, for around $17. Recommended for teens, some content may be a bit too graphic for youth under 13 years of age.
