Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - The Dead and the Gone

This dystopian trilogy still has some of the best world building in the genre I have ever read. I know they’re intended as middle grade books, but the content is grotesque at times and the plausibility of the stories are overwhelming. I had a hard time putting this book down.

The Dead and the Gone tells the story of a different experience than Miranda and her family in the first book of the trilogy. This family is in New York City and their suffering is different. The characters are all lovable and flawed in their own ways, and the breakdown of society is generous. It is still horrifying.

Horrifying, and engrossing. I absolutely recommend The Dead and the Gone as well as Life as We Knew It to any readers who are interested in dystopian novels. It’s not post-apocalyptic, but it is startlingly realistic-feeling. It will make you think. It will make you feel. And those books are the best.

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readingwithmeredith's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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taliahsbookshelf's review

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adventurous challenging emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

First things first, as much as I found Miranda annoying in the first book, Alex just seems shallow. You've got a so-called "typical" Puerto Rican-American, and a lot of his character is just based on this. To be honest, I felt like it could have been done really well, but the random Spanish phrases and the once-every-couple-chapters references to it just felt thrown in and not well-researched. There were a lot of times where I thought maybe this is it! Maybe this is the point that Alex grows up and overcomes the gender stereotypes that are pretty easily established at the very beginning of the book. Instead, we see see Alex's character development focused mainly on his sisters. Now, I'm all for character development of non-MCs, but I think when that development means the sacrifice of development for the MC, it isn't as effective as it could have been. Yes, Alex grew. But not in a way that actually helps progress the story, and not in a way that makes it character-driven rather than plot-driven. This is still a decent book, but there's a lot of tokenism that just felt kind of iffy to me. However, it was nice to see this crisis from the view of someone other than Miranda, other than your typical white teenage girl MC (don't get me wrong, I love reading these MCs and won't stop, but having diversity is really important, provided tokenism isn't the only reason for that diversity).

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