Life as We Knew It
Posted on | June 19, 2009 | 11 Comments
Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
This is what my YA book club is reading this month. Life as We Knew It is a harrowing and gripping story that details one family’s life after a meteor collides with the moon. It is written in diary format, as Miranda chronicles her daily life at school where everyone is dimly aware of the impending collision. After the meteor hits, the effects are worse than predicted, with tsunamis and volcanic activity destabilizing the Earth’s climate. Miranda’s mother does her best to hold the family together by hording food and rationing meals. Her brothers help out with the house, and while a semblance of normal life continues for a time as winter sets in the conditions grow worse and worse, and it is clear that the family is slowly dying of starvation.
Miranda’s normal concerns of high school friendship, sports, and boys continue while her family struggles to stockpile wood for the winter, but as people in her town die off or move to warmer locations in the hope of finding more food her world grows smaller and smaller until she’s left with only the room with a wood burning stove where her family sleeps on mattresses. The book ends on a slight note of hope, but the impact of the disaster on Miranda and the world in general isn’t minimized. I finished this book in a day, and it is definitely worth reading if you enjoy well-written YA speculative fiction.
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11 Responses to “Life as We Knew It”
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August 3rd, 2009 @ 12:42 pm
What is Miranda’s last name?
August 7th, 2009 @ 11:44 am
i just started reading the book……i got to the part where school ended and you flip the page and it says summer……not very far….
September 16th, 2009 @ 5:10 pm
ya im wondering what miranda’s last name is to, it doesn’t say in the book
September 19th, 2009 @ 10:06 am
best book ever! i loved every word of it.
September 28th, 2009 @ 1:26 pm
Evans
September 29th, 2009 @ 1:53 pm
dose every body die or what
October 28th, 2009 @ 6:45 pm
I LOVE BOKK I JUST STARTED READING IT IN CLASS FOR SSR BUT THEN I REALLY GOT INTO I AND I HELLA LIKED IT…………READ IT. ITS A GREAT BOOK.
November 15th, 2009 @ 4:26 pm
This is the absaloute best book I have ever read in my entire life!! what is mirandas last name??
November 15th, 2009 @ 4:31 pm
wait! there should be a sequel… how did the mayor get that food? cause there can be no crops or anything… they must die in like the next year or something… i doubt anything will get back to normal, cause houston would be underwater, so they can’t just pushs back the moon… volcanoes would run out of lava, then their might not be any gravitational pull… please don’t let this happen to us… they would be better off than those poor villages in like africa that you see on things like world vsion… Please make a sequel to it Susan Pfeffer!!!
November 19th, 2009 @ 8:45 pm
in that book world, ittmight turn out to be like the dinosaurs died…
October 25th, 2010 @ 5:04 pm
I’M DOING A BOOK REPORT ON THIS AMAZING BOOK. But. I cant find her last name!!