Life As We Knew It
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Pages: 347
I have a confession to make. I am increasingly becoming addicted to
anything and everything Post Apocalyptic.
From The Walking Dead to Doomsday Preppers to reading “Prepper” blogs on
the internet and of course reading Post Apocalyptic themed books . First up on my long list of “the world is
coming to an end” reading material is
Life
As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer.
And here is a kicker for you,
Life
As We Knew It is a Young Adult novel.
It is May when we first meet Miranda on May
7th. She is a High School student living
in Pennsylvania with her Mom and younger brother, while her older brother is
off to college. The media has been
talking about an Asteroid about to hit the moon for a while now and the whole
block gathers outside to watch events unfold; kind of like people do for
Haley’s Comet or other big events that can be seen by the naked eye. What they (they being the Scientists) did not
expect was for the asteroid to be much denser than they thought. So big it actually knocked the moon out of
alignment and is closer to Earth than ever before, causing earthquakes,
tsunamis, volcano eruptions and tidal waves from hell. Electricity becomes sporadic, gas becomes a
luxury item and food becomes scarce.
Miranda and her family are surviving for now, but what will happen when
Winter comes? Will they be able to
survive? And do they want to?
I really enjoyed
Life As We Knew It. The book
is written as if it were ripped right from the pages of Miranda’s diary, so we
only see her side of the story, but I enjoy novels written in that format. There
were a few political jabs at President Bush that let me know exactly what side
of the fence the author resides politically, but they are brief and if you can
get past that, you will find an engrossing novel that will cause you to pause
and think “What if…” The author did a
really good job, in my opinion, of having the characters be realistic in their
actions and reactions to the state of the world. They tried to carry on as normal as possible
for as long as possible, by going to the library and post office, and even
school and I really enjoyed seeing that.
The one thing I questioned more than once, was as food was running low,
why weren’t Miranda and her Brothers HUNTING in the woods that surround their
home? Squirrels, rabbits, and even deer
could have made their lives a bit less stressful.
Bottom line is that I really enjoyed
Life As We Knew It. It was a fast read about a situation that we
pray we will never find ourselves in at all. But it really challenged me to
think about how I would behave in the event of a catastrophic event that caused
me to not know where my next meal was coming from. Because it is a YA novel, there was nothing
too scary in this novel. I would say
that even my 12 year old could handle the content. I would even go so far as to say that I think
it would make a great movie, too.
P.S. I also want to add that I liked it so much, I
ran right to bn.com and bought the next two books in the series and am already
almost finished with the second book!!
Review is forthcoming!!
I love the idea of this! I'm pretty big on post-apocalyptic novels too lately (weird, right?) and I just bought a new one yesterday called After the Snow. It sounds amazing.
I've added this one to my list and I'm excited about the other reviews too!
I love this series too. I read the first two to one of my classes a few years ago. I also noted the jabs at Bush, but just ignored them as much as possible. I have noticed I'm reading a lot of those lately as well. I kind of need a break I think.
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