Average Girl Reads

The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Genre: fiction, young adult, dystopian
On my TBR list?: Yes, since April 2010

Summary from Goodreads:

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated readers with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event--an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican Alex Morales. 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, and food and aid dwindle. With haunting themes of family, faith, personal change, and courage, this powerful new novel explores how a young man takes on unimaginable responsibilities.


This book didn't work for me. I was surprised because I enjoyed Life As We Knew It, the first book in the series. At first I thought I was judging it unfairly because I wasn't in the mood for a novel set in a dystopian future, but I also had the third book on hand (This World We Live In) and immediately became engrossed in it. So what was my issue with this book?

I think that the the point of view was the problem for me. Unlike the other two books, the story in this one is told in the third person. That made the book depressing but still removed from my real life. However, when reading Life As We Knew It, the first-person diary point of view made me feel like the events were happening in my world NOW. There were times while reading taht book that I would have to remind myself when I woke up each morning that everything was normal. My teenage daughter had to put the book down because it affected her so strongly. I didn't get any of that with this installment of the series.

Although I am generally not a proponent of skipping books in a series, I would recommend that readers skip this one and head straight for the third book. It picks up shortly after the events in the first book and I didn't get the feeling that I was missing anything.



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Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book by Dr. Seuss

This morning a friend mentioned that she had to buy a children's book to take to a function and asked me for a recommendation. Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book immediately leapt to mind and it occurred to me that I have never mentioned this book on my blog.

I didn't discover this book until my kids were a bit too old to have picture books read to them. Still, I read it to them right before bed on Christmas Eve for several years, and I'm sure they would listen if I offered to read it to them again. The rhymes in the book are the most pleasing to roll around on my tongue of all the Seuss books I've read. When I read it at night, I really get a sense that people all over the world are dropping off to sleep right at that moment.

This is one of my favorite passages:

But it isn't too good when a moose and a goose
Start dreaming they're drinking the other one's juice.
Moose juice, not goose juice, is juice for a moose
And goose juice, not moose juice, is juice for a goose.

The illustrations are great, too. Many of the creatures look all fuzzy and fluffy, like stuffed animals you would want to snuggle up with at night. Even thought it is a little long, I still think this is the perfect bedtime book.

This week I got a link in my email to vote in the 2010 Goodreads Choice Awards. I figured I'd take a few minutes to vote while I was relaxing. It didn't take me long to realize that I haven't read many books published in 2010. There are 23 categories with 15 books each. There was some duplication between categories, of course (like a book being in Young Adult Fantasy and the Favorite Heroine category). Still, out of a pool of over 200 books, I had only read two. Many of the books I hadn't even heard of.

I know when I started this blog, I told myself that I wasn't overly concerned with reading the latest books because all my choices were coming from the public library. However, I think I may have gone too far in the opposite direction. This year, I made an effort to clear books off of my TBR list that have been on there for several years. Perhaps in 2011, I should try to snag more of the new releases as they show up at my local branch.

CURRENTLY READING: I've been making a lackadaisical attempt to get through The Dead and the Gone. It is from my TBR list, but once I checked it out I found I wasn't in the mood for dystopian fiction. So my natural inclination to finish what I start is fighting my desire to ditch this book.