This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer

This is the final companion to Life As We Knew It and The Dead & the Gone. Miranda Evans and her family have survived over a year after the catastrophic meteor hit the moon, creating an inhospitable earth. Life is a monotonous game of survival: eat now or perish? eat now or relish later? While life seems better, the government is able to send out some food. Their hope is guarded.

Hmm...honestly, I read this book awhile ago and have been putting off reviewing it for some time. It's not fresh in my mind, and I'm still deliberating how much I liked it.

Here's my quick synopsis: Miranda Evans and her family are still struggling to survive in rural Pennsylvania. Miranda dreams of something -anything- different, and longs to know if her father, step-mother, and baby sibling have survived. Her brothers go off on a fishing expedition, and her older brother, Matt, returns with a wife. She's odd, beautiful, and damaged, and she definitely makes Matt happy - but she is one more mouth to feed.

Later, Miranda's father and step-mother return. Having had no luck traveling west, they have been slowly making their way back to Pennsylvania, so that Miranda's father can be near all his children. On their trip home, Miranda's father and family have adopted others: Charlie, a happy middle-aged soul and the Morales siblings: Alex and Julie. These are the same Morales who were in The Dead & The Gone. That book ended with Alex obtaining tickets to a safe community - a town where the government provides protection and food for a select few.

This was a good book, but not great. However, this book develops a level of maturity greater than the others. It is in this book where the real gravity of their situation forces the main character to make very adult decisions that few will ever have to make in their lives. I wouldn't recommend this to a sixth grader because the decision at the end are so ... heavy. I'm not sure an 11 year old would get that. This book definitely feels more high school (lower high school) than middle-school.

Grade: B