The Dead and the Gone

I just finished listening to the audio book of The Dead and the Gone.You can read my mini-review on goodreads, but I've posted it here as well. Honestly, this book had me thinking of what I would do should calamity strike. I considered what canned food I'd load up on, among other things. For some reason - that's where I focused - canned food. It is an overwhelming part of this novel.

The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The moon gets knocked off its axis by a giant asteroid, and the results on earth are calamitous. It's told through from the point of view of Puerto-Rican New Yorker Alex Morales. His parents gone, and older brother deployed somewhere in the marines, he's left to take care of his younger sisters as New York City dies.

I'm not big on spirituality, but this book is full of it, and it resonates. There are moments of terror at what might happen, despair at what is and what has happened, interspersed with tiny specks of light. The characters are all deeply felt and New York in its "winter" breathes and dies.

I'm not ashamed to say my eyes welled up a few times. Excellent. Now I need to go read something funny.

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