This World we Live in follows on from the two previous Last Survivors books, with Miranda Hart and family still struggling to survive in Pennsylvania. As the book begins, they are coming to end of the incessant winter freeze, though it brings no less worry than before.
It was good. It wasn’t amazing, like I thought it would be, and it wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. Having known a little of the plot beforehand (Amazon gives away quite a significant chunk), I spent many chapters unhappily waiting for things to happen. The arrival of Miranda’s father and the other characters is actually quite a way into the book, so I felt much of what happened before that was filler. Nothing in this instalment seemed quite as desperate as in Last Survivors #1, perhaps due to the larger number of characters, and the book was also significantly shorter.
I did enjoy the book but I feel that what with Amazon’s spoilers and the wait-time I had on the book it wasn’t as good as it could have been had I read it immediately after #1. This book does, however, make Dead and the Gone (#2) more relevant, as Alex’s behaviour in This World we Live in is more justifiable within the context of the book. I still think the overall series was great but, unfortunately, I’ve read better end-of-the-world stories. I would still recommend Life as we Knew it on it own, but, although they round off the story, the cliff-hanger in the first book is best left that way.
