This is the companion novel to Life as We Knew It, a Caudill nominee from 2009. A much darker novel, it chronicles 17-year-old Alex Morales' plight after the crash of the asteroid into the moon. A straight-A student, working a part-time job and hoping to get a scholarship to Georgetown, it is Alex who becomes responsible for the care and well-being of his 11 and 14-year-old sisters when his parents do not return home after the disaster and are assumed dead.
The setting is New York City and the Morales live in an apartment. Food becomes an immediate problem and death and disease grow as the story progresses. As one sister gets sicker and the other one more scared and difficult, Alex knows his only hope is to find a way to get them out of the city.
As in Life as We Knew It, it is the story of the importance of family and love, hope, and faith, set against a terrifyingly real background.
Date read: 7/2/2009
ISBN-10: 0152063110
ISBN-13: 9780152063115
Check the library catalog