Pivotal Books for Teenagers

the Dead and the Gone

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

When life as Alex Morales had known it changed forever, he was working behind the counter at Joey's Pizza. He was worried about getting elected as senior class president and making the grades to land him in a good college. He never expected that an asteroid would hit the moon, knocking it closer in orbit to the earth and catastrophically altering the earth's climate.

He never expected to be fighting just to stay alive.

Susan Beth Pfeffer's "Life As We Knew It" enthralled and devastated readers with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event from a small-town perspective. Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of a seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican New Yorker. 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.

There's no happy ending to these stories, it's just a brief moment in their lives that show how they cope. In other words, it's a lot like real life. The pacing is perfect and the dates on the different sections are a great marker of time to keep you in the know.


Once again Pfeffer creates tension not only through her protagonist's day-to-day struggles but also through chilling moral dilemmas: whether to rob the dead, who to save during a food riot, how long to preserve the hope that his parents might return. This story is partially a test of faith.

If you want a book that will really make you think long after you put it down, you will need a copy of this book. Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, food shortages, and epidemics: this book has it all. If a disaster hit, would you be prepared?