This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer

3 stars -- I liked it, but not as much as the first two books

Book three of The Last Survivors books picks up after book one (Life as We Knew It) and book two (The Dead and the Gone) leave off and combines them. This World We Live In returns to Miranda's house as the long winter ends.

I swear that the cover says, "For those who wonder what happened next," though a quick glance at the Amazon Look Inside option doesn't show it... I may have imagined it. I do things like that. But this book really is for those who wonder what happened next for both Miranda and Alex. They had both been left in extremely emaciated states, both seemed to be on the brink of death, and while the endings of the previous books were hopeful, things were so far gone that readers couldn't be sure what the characters' futures would be.

This World We Live In continues Miranda and Alex's stories. It's an interesting read, and without giving any more away than is already on the cover, readers can imagine what feelings spark up between Miranda and Alex, seeing as the world has so many less ways for young people to meet and interact.

Alec and Miranda's stories intertwine when Alex shows up at her house with her dad and his new family. They've formed become a family in their own rights when their travels led them all in the same direction for a while.

There are a lot of characters in this novel, which is different compared to the lack of characters in the previous two novels. It lent a completely different feel to the novel, despite going back to Miranda's journaling-style of writing.

The book gave more depth to the post-apocalyptic world that Ms. Pfeffer has created, but the ending seemed more hopeless than the other books. I almost feel like there's not much more she can do with this world, because things are just continually deteriorating and nothing ever improves. But it's a writer's perogative to turn things around on a dime if need be.

Overall, I really like the series. I like the post-apocalyptic descriptions and the amount of thought that had to go into everything that could and would go wrong with a seemingly innocuous event. But this third book is the least favorite of the three, and I'm not sure I would intentionally recommend it to anyone.