Life As We Knew It by Susan B. Pfeffer

 

 GoodReads Summary:

Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the moon closer to the earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic winter, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.

Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.

Review:

I picked up this book because I have recently become fascinated with outer space and apocalyptic type scenarios. I am not really fascinated by the death involved, more of the cause and effect. I was surprised to find out that the world does not end in this book, at least I had the impression it would based off the back cover. 

This is told through the perspective of just a normal person, Miranda, a junior in high school who leads a completely normal life. I think that the fact that the author chose this character to be narrating was very interesting, because in many scenarios I could easily imagine myself in the situations she was in.

However, I found Miranda's character inherently immature. There were a lot of situations which, I hope, someone my age or older would have handled better than she did. There was a lot of "unfair" thrown into her narrative and yeah, I get it- the world is in turmoil, being racked by natural disaster. But that doesn't justify a sixteen year old whining about soup. In fact, the only character I truly saw mature was Jonny, Miranda's little brother.

Additionally, I felt that the normalcy of the character's lives subtracted from the plot. There was next to no action, nothing to keep me hooked. And again, I get it- the way this book was written is supposed to be realistic. But at the same time, there could have been something to spice up the story line. The only time things got interesting happened probably three-quarters of the way through the book.

Over all, I didn't hate it, but I had higher expectations. I enjoyed the general theme, but aspects of the book were just lacking for me. I would recommend this for people who enjoy slow moving, realistic scenarios. Nothing flashy, just reality.