Opinions of a Wolf

Summary:
Miranda and her mother and brothers have barely survived the long winter that came right after the moon was knocked out of orbit by an asteroid, bringing an apocalypse.  She’s been wondering for months what happened to her father and his pregnant new wife.  She’s thrilled when they show up on the doorstep when her newborn half brother, but she’s not so sure about the three extra people they’ve brought with them — an adult man and a teenage boy and his little sister.

Review:
The third book in this series reverts back to the Miranda’s journal format of the first.  While I appreciate bringing the diverse characters from the first two books in the series together, the use of Miranda’s journal exclusively in telling the story renders the tale a bit less interesting and strong than it could have been.

It should come as no surprise that a YA series featuring a girl in the first book and a boy in the second will bring the two together in the third.  I must admit that although when I finished the first book I was very eager to read more about Miranda, when I finished the second I was intrigued at the idea of a series that saw the same apocalypse lived out in different places by different people throughout.  That said, getting to know the extensive background of the love interest is appreciated and different but it is a bit jarring to go back to Miranda’s diary after getting to know Alex so thoroughly in the second book.  The book could have been much more powerful if Miranda’s journals were interspersed with chapters from Alex’s perspective.  Getting this perspective would have helped make their love seem more real, as opposed to just convenient.  (Alex is the only teenage boy Miranda has seen in a year).  Additionally, in spite of Miranda falling for Alex so fast, he mostly comes across as cold and overly religious in this book, whereas in his own book he was much more empathetic.  Certainly the need for survival will make him come across stern, and we know that Alex has a tendency to say important things in Spanish, which Miranda cannot understand.  Both of these facts means it would have worked much better to have alternating perspectives, rather than just Miranda’s.

The plot, with the exception of the instant love between Alex and Miranda, is good.  It brings everyone into one place in a way that seems natural.  The addition of new characters also breathes new life into Miranda’s situation.  Plus, Pfeffer does a good job of forcing the family out of their stasis in the home, something that both makes logical sense (these people were not preppers, they are not equipped to stay in their home forever in the apocalypse) and also keeps the plot interesting (one can only read about people holed up in a house for so long).  The plot developments also make more sense, scientifically, than in the previous books.

Religion is handled less smoothly here than in the previous two books.  Everyone but Miranda’s mother and Miranda has church on Sunday (Protestant or Catholic), and Miranda doesn’t have enough of a reaction to or thoughts about this.  She doesn’t really think about faith or spirituality.  Church is just something some other people do.  This is unrealistic.  A teen who has just gone through a disaster and sees her father suddenly take up faith would definitely at the very least have some questions.  Given that Alex has a very strong faith and they are interested in each other, one would think they would have some conversations about religion that go beyond whether or not they can have sex before they get married, yet they don’t.  The first two books sets a great stage to talk about faith in its many forms, as well as lack of faith, yet the book backs away from actually tackling this issue.  If it had, it would have offered something truly thought-provoking in the read.  Instead it’s a post-apocalyptic survivor romance.  Not a bad thing but not what I was expecting based on the first two books.

Overall, this is an interesting next entry in the series that brings Miranda and Alex back to the readers and moves the plot forward.  However, it dances around the issue of faith vs. lack of faith brought up in the first two books, eliminates Alex’s voice from the story, and suffers from some instant romance.  Those already invested in the series will still enjoy seeing what happens to Alex and Miranda, although skimming for plot points is recommended.

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3 out of 5 stars

Length: 261 pages – average but on the shorter side

Source: Library

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Previous Books in Series:
Life As We Knew It, review
The Dead and The Gone, review