The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Sequel to the fabulous Life as We Knew It, Pfeffer explores the same scenario (an asteroid hits the moon and changes its orbit, resulting in catastophic climactic changes on Earth) through the eyes of young Alex Morales, a teen living in New York City with his parents and two younger sisters. When the moon gets hit, both of Alex's parents are away from home, thus leaving the children to act as orphans (you never find out what happens to them) to fend for themselves. Alex is extremely mature and intelligent - making sure they ration their meals long before there is a dire need to, and he is forced to do any and everything he can to make sure his family survives. This unfortunately includes scavenging through dead people's things for items to sell on the black market.

As can be expected, the book is very somber and bleak. The Morales family is extremely religious, so there is a lot of talk about God and divine help, a concept which was absent from the first book. You may also argue that this book paints a helluva more realistic picture than the first one with the sheer amount of devastation and death. Though the book is marketed for teens, I still found it to be riveting - I think I finished it within a day.

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Fault Lines by Nancy Huston

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2008, Fault Lines takes an interesting narrative approach and follows four generations of a family counter-chronologically. Family secrets start to unravel as each generation's character is revealed. We first meet 6 year old Sol, a coddled spoiled brat of a character, as he and his family are on a trip to Germany to revisit a long-lost relative. Huston then introduces the reader to the other generations; his father Randall, grandmother Sadie, and great grandmother Erra. As each character's story unfolds, you can see how each narrative weaves into one. The last section, which centers on Erra, is the most eye-opening one and is the final piece of the novel's puzzle. I don't want to say much more because it'd be giving too much away, but suffice it to say, it's a pretty intense (and sad) read.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

A short but very moving tale about a man who uncovers the awful truth about a former lover. Michael is 15 when he first meets Hanna, who is 36. Despite the creepy age difference, the two become lovers, though Michael is far more captivated by the mysterious and distant Hanna than she is to him. Their affair is all too brief and one day, Hanna just disappears. Years later, Michael unintentionally sees Hanna as the defendant when he is observing a court case for law school. As Michael slowly learns about Hanna's horrible past, he must struggle to accept the question - if he loves (or loved) a monster, what does that make him? There is redemption in the end, but it's very bittersweet. And of course, they made a movie out of this one. If the weather is decent, perhaps I'll go see it this weekend - Kate Winslet is supposed to be fabulous.

"A Banquet of Consequences" by Elizabeth George

Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley mystery series is probably one of my favourites in the style of English detective stories. It's the series that I keep returning to, when I slip into a reading rut and can't focus on reading something new, particularly to the first book in the series A Great Deliverance. While there are lots of decent mystery series circulating now, the first book in George's Lynley stories has a certain grim insistence about it that keeps drawing me back to it. And in her latest contribution to the series, George has written a story that in many aspects parallels her first--however, these parallels did not become immediately apparent until the climax of the story. One of the things that I like best about Elizabeth George's writing is that she realises that a lot of times, the supporting characters can have better story potential than the main title character. She uses this to her advantage in almost all of the Lynley seri...

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